The Unintended
by alfamikepapa
Summary: Three freelancing operatives, the fruit of a troubling past and frightening training, enter a world where they have no purpose, the vendetta that they had waged now meaningless. Now they are faced with the same dilemma of their past, one that they had hoped to never resolve again. Worse yet, they may be the unintended consequence of a someone's actions... Hell will pay.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Detonation

I frowned as I peered through the optics of my mask, seeing the cone shaped artifact being carried into the south side of the temple by handcart.

The handcart was being pulled by a couple of young men and escorted by half a dozen militiamen carrying AK-47's, all of whom wore simple clothing one would expect from the denizens of the Yucatan peninsula, undershirts and jeans.

Not what I would exactly call low profile targets.

However, in the jungle where the vegetation provided plenty of concealment and the humidity and temperature was uncomfortable to say the least, I couldn't blame them for not wearing any camouflage or body armor.

After all, It wasn't like anyone was stalking them, as far as they were concerned.

"Wolf, did you get a final count of guards on the north side of the temple" I asked as I spoke into the radio on the side of my head, all while ignoring the sweat running down my face.

"I count 8 guards, all maintaining a slow patrol," a young woman's voice replied. "All of them have AK's, though they don't seem to have anything more than that. They don't have any sort of protection on them for that matter."

"This is Badger, second that observation from here. These guys have their guard down, if the smoking and lax patrolling seems to be offering us some sort of clue" another feminine voice piped in.

I grunted and focused back on the magnified view my mask was currently offering, getting a count of the "guards" from my side of the temple, some 50 meters away from my position on the border of the jungle.

"Right, well, I count two groups patrolling, three in each, with a mounted LMG in a fighting position covering the entrance." I said.

"Combine that with the eight guards on the north side of the temple..." I said, trailing off in thought.

"And the 3 patrols out circling the perimeter..." Wolf quietly said.

Badger finished the thought for me. "That's a total of 32 militiamen, give or take, in the vicinity of the temple."

My mind had already sped through all of that. A useful symptom of ADD, given enough training and experience. What I was currently trying to focus on was what would happen after contact was made.

The pyramid temple sat in the middle of a larger circular grass field, no cover and little concealment.

The 14 exposed militiamen around the temple would be no problem, so long as none of them made it to that position where the LMG was positioned. The patrols that were out in the jungle behind us could prove troublesome, as they could flank my team if any of the guards were able to make to the position and hunker down.

No, the real problem was the QRF some 4 clicks to the east.

Making it into the temple and securing the artifact would hardly be troublesome.

But getting out of the temple? Well, there was only one entry point and as far as I was concerned, it was the only exit. If the QRF got here while we were inside the temple, all they would have to do was siege us down.

And if my team managed to get out quickly, we could find ourselves exposed on the grassland.

The .50 caliber machine guns on the back of those jeeps I had seen earlier looked mean and ready.

Time was the real opponent here, and speed with, at the moment, surprise our only real friends.

But, it could be a lot worse.

"Right, here's what we are going to do." I began.

Fifteen Minutes later…

The sun finally set and jungle quickly went dark. It was time.

My breathing slowed, and my training took over. I pulled on the string of my compound bow, drawing it taut as I targeted the center mass of my first target as my fingers held the broadhead arrow. I spoke into my radio and gave the word:

"Alfa, go."

A split second later, I smoothly let the arrow fly, hitting the target dead center in the chest. The first one went down, and I shifted my sights to the second target in the group, who seemed to just barely register what had happened to his buddy.

I shot the other two targets, silencing them quickly before shifting my sights to scanning the grounds around the west side of the temple, where I saw two guards sprinting in my direction, away from the ambush Wolf had commenced on the north side. I could only assumed they were rushing for the LMG position, or the inside of the temple.

A fatal mistake, I sadly thought.

I was never one to have enjoyed the act of killing. Life was sacred as far as I was concerned. But war was a matter of kill or be killed. And I believed that one of the best ways to defend whatever it is you need to fight for was to go on the attack.

In a couple of minutes, the fourteen guards around the temple were down. Badger and I immediately rushed to the entry of the temple, with Wolf relocating to the west side of the jungle facing the temple to provide overwatch.

As I ran with Badger, I put the bow over my back and pulled out my Folded blade, whipping it out like butterfly knife, the 50 cm blade popping out of the handle resting in my left hand. I then closed my eyes and let the Void fill me.

The glyphs on the back of my left hand and palm of my right tingled and I opened my eyes, looking into what had been the dark entry of the temple.

Now, I could see six militiamen rushing and yelling down the corridor, their outlines in red on a blue background of what should of been a black, light less world. Badger, a couple of feet in front of me, was shrouded in green.

We both stopped and pulled out our pistols, taking down the militiamen who were running at us. As I shot the last guard down and proceeded down the corridor into the temple, I noticed something and frowned.

Why had they been yelling? And where were their rifles?

I was interrupted with the voice of Wolf yelling into the radio, gunfire evident in the background "My position's compromised and the QRF is already getting closing in. I'm headed into the temple with you guys, see if we can get ourselves hunkered down."

My thoughts raced furiously as I turned around in the corridor to see Wolf beginning to enter the temple.

It clicked.

"NO!" I yelled..

One of the reasons me and my team existed was to deny terrorist groups assets of any sort. In this case, the cone shaped artifact we had been tracking down for the last four and a half months was rumored to be an ancient weapon of some sort, even a weapon of mass destruction.

Which seemed absolutely ridiculous, until you considered how much blood, effort, and fighting had been shed over possession of this artifact.

The same artifact that had been brought into this strange, almost alien temple by those militiamen…

The same militiamen who, until just recently, had been running away. In terror.

So sudden was the light that filled the corridor and heat going through my body, that as I quickly fell unconscious, all I could think was how thankful I was to be able to die a quick death.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Awakened

The first thing I noticed as I began to regain consciousness was the nausea and headache. All I could think of was how comparable it was to getting a concussion during hand-to-hand combat training. I slowly opened my eyes, and tried to stand up, only to get dizzy and fall down, almost passing out.

As I lay on my side, not sure whether I was looking down a corridor or having tunnel vision, I tried to gather in my surroundings. Looking around, I realized that I was indeed in a corridor, but couldn't seem to remember as to why that was the case. Slowly rolling around onto my other side to look down the other way of the corridor, I bumped into a crystalline dome.

I immediately recognized it as a stasis field, if the purple tinge it was giving off and hard, steel-like surface told me anything. Looking inside it, I saw Badger on her knees, as if in prayer. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be slightly swaying, looking as if she was hypnotized.

One of the reasons Badger used a stasis field was to provide a personal bunker, seeing as how it took a considerable amount of firepower to be able to breach one as small as the one she was in. Which meant that we had found ourselves in a SNAFU.

It was looking at the stasis field that I remembered what had happened. The direct action my team was doing, the temple, the artifact.

 _Wait, shouldn't I be dead?_

I again slowly stood up, this time preparing myself for the discomfort that was sure to follow. As I leaned myself against the wall, I growled.

Concentrate. Ignore the pain. I need to find Wolf. I need to fin-

The dog-like howl that I heard down the corridor interrupted me. I squinted down the dark corridor, barely able to see anything, wondering just what the heck did I just hear.

 _First off, that was not what I meant by finding Wolf. Also, since when the hell were there ever supposed to be wolves in the Yucatan._

I opened myself to the Void and focused down the corridor with the optics on my mask, this time able to see well past the entry of the temple, into the forest

Nothing.

 _Dammit, where was Wolf? She was just entering the temple before we got knocked out. Assuming she had been hit by that… blast wave or whatever it was, she would be down just like the rest of us. Unless she had managed to recover already._

Again I heard that dog howl, and all I could think was how it didn't fit.

Wait, a forest.

My eyes went wide as I again zoomed past the entry of the temple, and again I saw the forest. Not a jungle, but a forest.

 _Great, now_ _I'_ _m hallucinating._

I quickly checked myself, probing for any injuries that I could have, before doing a quick count of what equipment I had.

A folding blade, 9mm pistol with attachable silencer and 8 mags, my folding compound bow with 17 arrows, and 24 mini's, 12 smoke and 12 high explosive.

As I was walking toward the exit, I looked back on Badger, who was still in the stasis field. While I wasn't sure how long she would be there, I knew she would be fine, her meditation helping her rest and prepare. I proceeded to pull out my folding blade and pistol, dual wielding them, and then walk outside.

As I stepped out onto the grassland, I checked my corners and scanned the area, strangely feeling confident that there were no immediate threats. I looked around.

I was still seeing a forest, none of the bodies leftover from the initial strike were here, and I couldn't see any sign of Wolf.

I cutoff my Vision and took off my mask. Looking around again, I realized that it was still nighttime and the moon was out, providing some light. I then began to walk up to one of the tree's, noticing something strange.

The leaves were red.

It was a little difficult to tell, but I pulled out my headlight and pointed the light up at the leaves. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I didn't have something in my eyes. Then looked again.

Red, all of them. And as I looked down at the ground, contemplating, I saw the it too was red. Or rather the grass was.

Backing up slowly, I then looked up again at the sky, not wanting to see a red landscape around me in fear of the fact that I may just be going insane. What I saw only served to confuse and even shock me.

The moon was shattered, as if some massive celestial object had crashed into it and the remnants were now all that was left. The stars… were unfamiliar. I couldn't find a single constellation. I couldn't even find Polaris, the north star.

"Well, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" someone said.

I tensed and relaxed within the second, recognizing the voice of Wolf. I turned around to see her standing there, scanning the trees just as I had been.

"How long have you been up, and where have you been?" I spoke quietly, the ball of fear that I had been feeling dissolving into relief. And anger.

Wolf must have heard the edge on my voice, and replied with a flat stare of her own.

"Looking around, and I did check up on you guys, before I did leave. You and Badger should be fine."

I frowned and proceeded to have her tell me what she had found. The surrounding forest was just like it was here, red leaves and red grass. There were cliffs and mountains surrounding the area, and as for water sources, she had yet to find anything.

And as for any wildlife…

"Yes I did hear the howls, for that matter, and I thought they were wolves. I just cant quite seem to identify whatever it is that's howling, wolves be damned." Wolf said.

" Hmm?"

Wolf seem to hesitate, which was worrisome. She was patient, but she didn't hesitate.

"I keeping seeing them, just out of the corner of my eye, but I can't quite get a good look at them." 

"Them?"

"They move in packs, I know that for sure."

"So they could actually be wolves or cousins of some sort?" I questioned.

"They're pretty agile to be wolves. And a lot bigger than one as well." She replied quietly.

"What's that about being faster and bigger than wolves?" I heard a third voice. Badger.

"Some of the wildlife in the magical red forest in front of us seem to be wolves but apparently aren't." I grumbled. The headache and nausea were dissipating, but I was just realizing how starved I was, and I needed to eat.

Wolf gave me a cold stare and proceeded to recount the same information she had just told me.

Badger was quiet, and only nodded a few times. Afterwards, she asked a question of her own.

"What happened inside the temple?"

Before I could even start, another howl went off somewhere in the forest ahead of us. Louder. And closer.

We pulled out our weapons, firearms pointed and melee weapons at the ready, looking deep in the forest to try to identify something. Anything, for that matter, considering how worried we were.

Again, I activated my vision, and put my mask on to see deeper into the forest. Nothing.

I looked at Wolf, and she shook her head. She had seen nothing with her vision either.

"I feel something, an animal aggression of a sort, except darker, and empty." I heard Badger whisper.

I again looked into the forest, and this time saw… two pinpoints of light. Yellow colored. Unknown.

I stopped my Vision and looked at the pair of lights, this time red colored, and closer. I motioned my team to begin to back up towards the temple entrance.

The pair of lights still came closer, before another pair of lights popped up, and another.

"So if those are eyes..." Wolf said, "Badger, is that where the aggression is coming from?"

Badger nodded, and I held up the arm, positioning us just in front of the mouth of the temple entrance.

"Wait, lets get a good look at our shy guests." I ordered.

What I saw only disturbed me, and confused me further. What in the name of God were they?

The "wolves" I saw enter the clearing were bigger than us, standing on hind legs but slouching. They had pitch-black fur, and red eyes, and there were strange white protrusions along their back and arms. Their face seemed to have mask of some sort, marked strangely. But, what really got my attention were the fangs. And the claws. The long, sharp looking claws.

These creatures could almost be called a wolf. But they were more familiar to the wolf's mythical cousin, the werewolf.

Silently, I ordered that we move back into the temple corridor, hiding in the shadows as we observed these "werewolves."

The pack of werewolves, numbering eight in total, stopped some twenty meters from the entrance. They circled around, and seemed to… what, sniff the air?

It was clear up to this point that they were hunting and that they knew that there was prey somewhere near by, but the real question was wither or not they had detected us.

I slowed my breathing and focused, controlling my fear, using it to prime and prepare myself for possible conflict. I heard my teammates do the same thing, their breathing slowed down to a steady pace.

That's where it went wrong.

The creatures all stopped moving, then turned their heads in our direction. I barely hear one of them snarled. But that was all I need to hear to conclude what was coming next.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Contact

I cursed, seeing the werewolves close the distance. To my left, I heard Badger open fire with her battle rifle, the consistent crack of aimed fire being directed at the front of the pack, muzzle flash hidden by the suppressor.

Wolf, to my right, pulled out her wicked sharp katana, steadying herself in whatever martial arts stance in preparation for the upcoming melee.

I looked at the pistol in my hand, cursed again (it just didn't have the stopping power I needed) and holstered it. I brought my blade up and opened myself up to the Void.

I crouched, focusing on using the shadow I was in as a gate, filling myself with the energy of the Void.

Then, I waited.

By the time the werewolves were on us, Badger had already managed to kill two of them, and was already dropping her rifle in order to draw her battle ax.

Wolf, unsurprisingly, made the first move. She quickly dashed forward, slicing her katana horizontally and cleaving right through the first wolf. Immediately after, she flipped over the entire pack, proceeding to engage the rear of the pack.

Badger started hacking away, attempting to keep the front of the pack at bay while me and Wolf killed the wolves as quickly as we could.

Right after Wolf had flipped over the wolves and the remains of that first wolf were being trampled on, I lashed out, Shadow Striking right into the next wolf in line.

Shadow Striking allowed me to be able to take the ever valuable element of surprise to a whole new level. Using the energy I had collected, I was able to direct it into one point of contact between a weapon and the enemy. In this case, the tip of my blade. What results is a strike that is cable of punching right through military-grade body armor, inflicting a massive wound that festered and stung. And if the strike killed the target outright, the body would begin to disintegrate into ash. Leaving no remains.

Which was what happened to the creature I had just ambushed.

There's a reason why my callsign is "Jaguar".

I quickly rolled to the left, into the open field and faced what remained of the pack. Slouching, I saw that two of the wolves had entered into the temple corridor, continuing their attack on Badger. Wolf was

circling another, larger one, trying to familiarize herself with whatever she was facing.

The last wolf decided that I looked tasty and immediately launched itself at me, flying towards me fangs and claws at the ready.

I quickly rolled forward, stabbing upwards into the jaw then head of the wolf as I finished the roll. Glancing behind me, I saw that the wolf had not picked itself up, and that something was happening to it's form.

The sound of blade on bone caught my attention, and I saw Wolf follow up on a slash on what I now was suspecting to be bone armor, bouncing off before leaping backwards to avoid a counter-slash from her opponent.

I frowned and quickly noted the somewhat larger size of the werewolf, as well as the additional armor it had. It also seemed to be more cautious.

I began to advance on it when I noticed out of the corner of my eye Badger limp out of the temple, wiping the blood off her ax as she too went in to assist Wolf.

The pack leader, realizing that it had run out of friends, quickly slashing at Wolf to keep her back before turning and running back into the forest. In retreat.

We all stood there in silence, making sure that more didn't come our way before we turned around, before we walked back into the temple.

 _A few minutes later..._

"What the hell where they?"

Administering to Badger's cut on her thigh, I was a little too occupied with answering Wolf's question, and left her to her rambling.

"For Christ's sake, one moment I was entering the temple, trying not to get killed, next thing know, I'm waking up feeling like someone had just gotten a good hit on my head with a brick."

"And now, we seem to be in a undiscovered place on Earth, where everything is red and werewolves actually fucking exist. And the moon blew up. How is it that the artifact blew up the moon and not us?" Wolf said shakily, as if about to crack soon.

As I finished tying up Badger's bandages, my mind began to race through what had happened.

The artifact had detonated, that was certain.

As far as I was concerned, no place like this existed on Earth. Werewolves had never been encountered, and the logic behind the fact that the artifact had destroyed the moon, but not us, was absurd. Though maybe the temple had directed it at the moon?

No, I remembered clearly that the moon had not been up at the point of time. Of course, I had no idea how this weapon worked.

But then I remembered the one observation I had made when I first went out side.

The stars. None of the stars where familiar. Or rather I couldn't make out a single constellation.

The night sky was one of many worlds that I loved. The history behind the constellations was interesting and I was familiar with the majority of them, and I could identify a good portion of them, regardless of location or time.

The only explanation was that we were not on Earth.

Unfortunate, I have tendency to speak some of my thoughts out loud without knowing it, and I could practically feel the stares my teammates were giving.

"You really believe that?" Wolf said.

I slowly nodded my head. And recounted every thought I had just had.

When I finished, Wolf sat down and rubbed her temples, growling softly as she tried to keep herself calm. Badger only looked me in the eye.

"So, you're saying we're aliens. And that we have somehow been teleported to who knows where in the galaxy, or universe, God forbid. That we've discovered a habitable world other than Earth."

I, again, nodded.

Badger smirked. "Chew on that Columbus..."

I snorted, and Wolf looked at us as if we were insane.

Then we started to laugh

After I got Badger got comfortable, Wolf and I attempted to go deeper into the temple, in the hopes that maybe we got get some sort of idea of what had happened. Unfortunately, the temple, considering how old it was, interior was damaged, and it was an absolute maze. For that matter, there were hallways that had totally collapsed, and Wolf eventually had to convince me to stop searching. The only way we would finding anything was if we managed to get our hands on some excavation equipment. Whatever had happened, it would have to wait. For now.

I decided to take first watch, and positioned myself just in the mouth of the entrance, allowing myself a good view of the forest ahead of me.

As I was sitting in the shadow, the gate of energy ready, I began to plan what we were going to do.

It wasn't good. We were in some strange wilderness, where we had no idea how close areas of civilization were ( _If they existed,_ I grunted). We only had our combat packs on us when the anomaly had happened, our supplies back at base camp. So we had hardly any food, and water was limited.

Badger was injured, and moving around was going to be a pain. And who knew what the hell was out in the forest, ready to tear our throats out.

I sighed. Then stopped myself.

 _I won't do this right now. I'm fatigued and shaken, and I need to get some food. I'll figure something out tomorrow morning, when I'm in better shape._

Wolf eventually came to takeover and I soon found myself falling asleep next to Badger, thinking one last thought before I left into whatever dreams I was to see.

 _It could be a lot worse._


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Hunter and Hunted

 _18 hours after the Yucatan anomaly_

"Are you sure you saw a train out there?" Wolf asked from the front of the line for the third time, as she carefully looked around for threats of any sort, mostly in the form of the wolves and bears we had encountered multiple times.

At this point, I would be telling Wolf to just shut up, but considering our situation, I couldn't blame her for being worried.

When I had woken up earlier and climbed the temple as high as I could, trying to get a better view, I had been able to just see a train race around the side of a mountain in the distance. At least, I think it was a train...

So naturally, we set off in the direction of the mountain, in the hopes we would find the tracks and follow them. But, of course, nothing was going the way it should.

The terrain was hilly and there were cliffs everywhere, Badger was injured and limping and we kept getting ambushed by those "damned-son-of-a-bitch" creatures (Wolf's words, not mine.) In other words, we were moving too slowly.

Which would actually be fine, if we had supplies to sustain us. We were able to find water, but food was a different matter. Simply put, we ran the risk of starv-

"Deer."

"Where?" I said, head snapping around as I tried to spot it. I reached onto my back, grabbing for my bow.

Before Wolf could point it out, I heard the crack of Badger's rifle and the deer went down, it's upper head blown away.

We all froze, immediately scanning around us for any of the creatures, knowing very well that they had to have heard the gunshot. Some of them seemed to be able to detect us easier than others, as if they knew what a gunshot meant, in this case.

After a few minutes, we didn't see any movement and went to the carcass. As Wolf and Badger did their best to clean and dress the kill, I kept an eye out, sweeping the area with my Vision and mask. That's when I spotted the patrol.

It would turn out that the werewolves and bears were not the only threat we needed to worry about.

Spotting the unknown personages, I motioned for my team to get down. I quickly inspected the patrol, only about 30 meters in front of us.

There were twelve of them, all wearing the same uniform of a mask, sleeveless jacket, black hood and pants. Armed with what liked like assault rifles, they were spread out in manner that meant they looking for something. Or someone.

I felt nervous, knowing full well that they had been most likely drawn here by Badger's gunshot. I had no idea if they were hostile, and I looked to Badger, who only gave me a shake of her head, and whispered.

 _Afraid._

I frowned, and looked back at the patrol, who had stopped all of a sudden.

 _Shit, they've spotted me,_ I thought as I instinctively hit the ground, barely dodging the start of a barrage of automatic fire that was now being poured at us.

Wolf had already begun crawling toward the base of one tree, and was climbing up it into the canopy of branches, proceeding to moving amongst the trees quietly, towards the patrol to get into a position to ambush them from above.

I motioned Badger to move around to the right of the patrol, which would allow her to easily pick off them off one-by-one.

Throwing a few smoke mini's at them, I got up and ran up a tree to get into vantage point, pulling out my compound bow, arrow already ready as I picked my first target, using my Vision to look through the smoke.

The patrol may have had the numbers, but they were sloppy. While I grudgingly applauded them for being able to spot me that easily, that they had stood there and ALL opened fire on me in a spray and pray manner was what was going to get them killed. Automatic fire was only effective when used in suppressing and close quarters combat, and even then, only when you were using big enough ammo clips.

They were all reloading. At the same time.

The perfect moment for Wolf to strike.

The combination of Badger's precision fire, my arrow fire and Wolf's ambush made quick work of the enemy, despite the fact they took a lot more damage then I expected.

It was if they were absorbing the hits they were taking. Wolf would strike horizontally against the chest of one, a normally fatal hit, only for the recipient to be pushed back, a shallow cut across his chest. An arrow to the chest didn't seem to hit them as hard, only wounding them. I even saw a round hit the head of one of them at a very shallow angle, bouncing right off.

But in the end, it was still too much. You have to see something if you want to be able to hit and kill it.

Something my team could do. But they couldn't, not in the smoke.

As we cleaned ourselves up and scrounged through the bodies, looking for anything useful, Wolf told us that whenever she had struck one of them with her blade, she felt resistance, as if trying to cut through leather. Seeing hardly any armor on them, I suspected some sort of 'shield' but we couldn't find anything that supported that. Ammo clips, comm devices, water and the such were all we found.

"Well, they don't have any food on them." I said absently, thinking about what could be the cause of the 'shields'.

"Jaguar, the deer we killed? All we need to do is finish cleaning the deer, and we can use the knapsacks these guys were carrying to store some food. I don't think we're at risk of starving at the moment..." Badger trailed off in thought and then looked me in the eyes.

"Where are their support packs?" she asked.

"Support packs?… their supplies." I realized where she was getting at. "They have a camp near by."

"Or they were transported here." Wolf said, suddenly looking around. "I don't recall hearing any air transport recently."

"Then they've been here for some time, or they came here by ground means. Either way, there has to be a camp near by."

"Finding it should be no problem, in that case." Wolf said as she went back to the bodies, in search of map.

"And even if there isn't a map, we should assume that their higher-ups are going to notice their disappearance. For that matter, the patrol probably called in the gunshot it had heard." Badger replied,

"They're going to be looking for these guys at some point." She said.

"Which means that we need to keep moving. If we loiter around, we're going be discovered. And I don't think these guys were simply investigating..." I trailed off in thought.

"They were on a search-and-destroy? Jag, listen, yeah, I know I felt the hostility emanating from them, but I did feel fear too. Considering where we are, I have a feeling the golden rule around here is shoot first and ask later."

"I mean, they weren't trained, if you remember their performance. These guys were most likely militia. You probably scared them when they spotted you." She finished.

"You think that I screwed up when we counter-attacked." I said quietly, realizing what she was getting at. "You think that I overreacted."

"No, more that both parties overreacted. Jag, they screwed up royally in that they could've simply tried to find out what we were doing. But they opened fire. Though maybe you shouldn't have been slouching like you were, mask and all of that."

I grunted, realizing that a non-lethal approach would have been for the best. She was making a sound argument, as I thought about their fire discipline. Then I thought about all their equipment, and uniforms, how they were standardized. It screamed of military and organization.

Organization… A group.

It was that thought that made me recall the symbol on the back of their uniforms.

"Badge, you did see the wolf's head on the back of their uniforms?"

"Yes…"

"Did you get good look?"

Badger paused, then shook her head.

"Here, I think I can explain why it is that these guys make me feel uneasy." I said as I began walking over to the where Wolf was, beckoning Badger to follow me.

After I recounted everything Badger and I had discussed to Wolf, I took the cover off of one body and turned it over, now able to study the logo on the back of the uniform.

A menacing red wolf's head, growling, lying atop of what appeared to be a claw wound. It radiated of hostility.

Wolf turned to me, saying "Well, a lot of military units do have their own insignia's."

I shook my head, and replied. "Pretty loud logo even for a military insignia, if you ask me. And, in a way, too good for these guys. This is something you would see on a unit specializing in shock and awe. A unit that's dangerous. Which they are not, considering how you tore them up in the melee."

"So they're inexperienced and even untrained, but their uniforms and equipment are all the same and are of good quality, from what I can tell. Militia tend not to bother or be able to get to that level of said quality, the quality you see with effective, trained, military units. But it leads back to the fact that these guys suck. Interesting Catch-22." Wolf said. "But that they have this symbol on their backs, it looks like they want to make a statement."

"Maybe whoever is in charge of these guys has really big ego?" Badger chirped in.

"And a lot of money. Oh, and as for a map, I didn't find what I thought I would. Though, I think it would do the job. It's pretty cool." Wolf replied, a glint of excitement in her eyes as she gave me a small rectangular device.

It was the size of a United States one-dollar bill, and thin. It was light, the material feeling a little strange. Down the middle of it was a thin line, a little crack if you will. In the middle of the device was a small yellow diamond button. I pressed, and felt something unlock.

Nothing happened, and I let it dangle, before lightly shaking it a bit. The thin line grew a little in width, and I stuck my pinkie in there wiggling it in a bit. It grew bigger. I put a hand on each side and pulled it apart carefully. What I saw made me grin.

It had grown into the size of a tablet, a glass like panel in the middle, projecting what looked to be what you would see on the home page of a touch screen. I realized that it was translucent, being able to see Badger's wide eyes.

 _Holographic maybe? The panel works like a touch screen. Now, lets see here…_

 _This looks like a directory. Files, files and more files… Map, there has to be a map._

Searching through the files, It suddenly hit me that I could and was actually reading the names of them.

 _Okay… So despite the fact that we are most likely on a alien world, these guys use English._

 _Convenient. Maybe too convenient._

Finishing the thought, I soon found what I was looking for.

I sent Badger to finish up on the deer while I stayed and studied the map with Wolf. After a bit, we were able to learn a bit of our surrounding area, and get a idea of what our situation was.

Indeed, there was a camp in the vicinity. Or more rather an small, established base. Reading the numbers correctly, there were another two squads based there, and that while two said squads were patrolling about, a third one was to guard the camp and the support team there. This raised a few questions, as well as make us immediately ship out, realizing that we had lingered for far too long.

Who exactly were these guys? Paramilitary most likely, though I was intrigued as to strange combination of little training but quality equipment. As well as their objectives, short-term and long.

 _What to do, what to do._

 _Six hours later…_

Rested and feeling better, thanks to the deer we killed, we moved in the direction the base. Reading the map once more, I saw that what we were going to do could get interesting.

Our plan was to attempt to infiltrate the base and kidnap one these guys, during the night, when me and my team felt we could properly execute the extraction and not cause a commotion. While the preferred target would be an officer or a member of the support team, I would later discover that wasn't going to happen. These guys had decided to construct the base up in the canopies of the forest. Which confused me, until I later saw that the tree's that they were using were rather large. Understandable, since they wanted to be able to have a good view of the surrounding area.

Later that night, hiding in the shadows, I studied the base.

The camp itself was actually split up into two stations, each located on a different tree, but connected by an exposed suspension bridge ( _That could be a the final straw...)._ The living quarters station was located to the north of the main station ( _used for what_?), but was surrounded by guard posts in smaller tree's. I realized that it would be suicidal to try and reach the tree holding the quarters. I would have to infiltrate the quarters by going through the station

The main station itself was located on a bigger tree, and as such didn't need any separate guard posts.

Studying the main station, I realized that the main station had only three guards, thanks to a lack of manpower, and the fact that it was like a large patio, allowing for some of the guard posts at the quarters to see the station. But only during the day, I assumed. As for the rest of them, they were either asleep or guarding the living quarters.

I began climbing the tree holding the station while Wolf climbed an adjacent tree. Badger wouldn't be able to provide any assistance, thanks to her leg. However, Wolf would be on standby to come charging in if the situation went to hell.

The bark felt good on my hands as I climbed the tree, though I dared not look down, knowing from past experience that doing so would make me lose focus.

Slowly I climbed the tree until I almost reached the station, the railing just beyond my grasp, the floor of the station right over my head.

I stopped and listened for the sounds of the guards. I heard snoring and two pair of feet slowly circling the edge of the station. As they walked over me, I began pulling myself up, opening myself to the Void as I began to swing myself over the railing. Focusing, my feet touched the floor, but made no noise. I crouched as I moved under the roof, allowing my Vision to help me see where I was going.

The station was actually above the canopy of the tree's, allowing a good view of the surrounding area for miles. However, the moon was up, and shining into the station at an angle, lighting some of the valuable shadow inside the station.

Focusing one more, I slipped into one of the few shadows and drew energy, this time using it to camouflage myself, blackening me to the same tint as the shadow itself.

Identifying the source of the snoring, I moved slowly between the shadows towards him, where he sat on a chair, rifle on his lap as he slept the night away. Positioning myself so that he was between the moon and me, I studied him.

His uniform was no different from the others. A grunt, like the others. Short, and skinny. The rifle looked to big for him.

I looked in the direction of the living quarters, and saw the rope bridge connecting the two stations.

It would be stupid move on my part to try to sneak across that. Tempted though I felt.

As much as I hated admitting it, capturing a more valuable target wasn't going to happen. The guard posts around the living quarters were just making it too tricky. I was going to have to take this one in front of me.

I moved behind another console, located next to a doorway pointed away from the guard posts, and waited for the guards to come.

"… so here I am, right, minding my damn business, trying to relax a bit in the bar after another day, when this human comes up to me and asks what the hell I'm doi..."

I froze. Human?

 _Wait, these guys aren't human?! The hell!? But they look… normal..._

Flabbergasted, I let the pair walk past me as they continued on another circle. Listening, I heard the guy continue on about getting into some bar fight. The story sounded ordinary, except that his opponent was a "human."

Chilled a little, I let them just walk past me before I moved behind them and took them out, blade stabbing quickly up into the base of their necks.

I moved quickly to the sleeping guard, preparing a gag and some bindings. When I reached him, I put the knife to his throat, and used my other hand to put the gag on his mouth.

His eyes flashed open, and I growled " Yell and you die. Open your mouth."

After stuffing it in his mouth and then binding him, I looked over at the bridge and cursed.

There were was another pair of guards coming this way. Whether they were a replacement or checking up on the guys here, I knew that it was time to leave.

I looked around, trying to locate any device that I assumed they would have up here to be able to deploy to the ground quickly. Frantically, I searched, before spotting what I needed.

Bolted to the railing were a trio of what looked to be large spools of some sort of rope. Moving towards it, with the squirming guard over my shoulder, I saw on the other side of the spools a handle each spool, which I assumed were attached to the ends of the rope. A means of rappelling.

Grabbing one of the handles, I swung my legs of the railing, and pressed one of the two buttons. Nothing.

 _Crack-CrackCrackCrack-Crack!_

 _Shit!_

I pressed the other button, unexpectedly dropping to the earth at a frightening speed.

 _Shit shit shit too fast toofasttoofas-_

I felt the trigger.

" _Pull it son. You just gotta do it. You can't hesitate. Not now, not ever. Its kill or be killed."_

 _Kill or be Killed._

I pulled it, and I immediately slowed down, my back protesting at the sudden decrease in speed.

Feeling the ground, I turned and threw as many of the smoke mini's as I could fit into my hand, the little balls flying into the ground in front of me.

Running through the smoke, I could hear the rattle of automatic fire, the guards above shooting into the smoke screen I had created, desperately trying to hit me. The snap of a battle rifle told of a guardian angel watching over me, and the now-familiar sound of metal being pulled and strained off a spool again told of the descent of what I assumed to be our hunters.

That's when I saw the pairs of red eyes up ahead of me.

 _Goddammit. Me and my big mouth… "It could be worse."_


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – A Rock and a Hard Place

 _1 day, 1 hour after Yucatan anomaly_

Seeing the eyes in the forest, I immediately halted, almost falling over from the momentum I still had.

There was no way I could simply escape into the forest. I would only be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Hearing the sound of something flying, I turned around, looking into the smokescreen that I had created.

Wolf was in the process of surprising my pursuers, quickly slicing through them with what I realized were her Twin Cobra Blades. I had forgotten about her and was now only realizing that she had managed to grapple her way down from a tree above in order to save my butt.

The Cobra Blades she used were unusual pieces of equipment, to say the least. They were the same size as my folding blade, though the blade's themselves were shorter, the handles longer and little thicker. But what made them strange were the wires in the blades. Wolf could detach the blades, throwing them around and allowing her to grapple her way around.

I realized that those blades where what were going to get us away from the incoming creatures. Running up to Wolf, I handed my prisoner to her and had her grapple her way up the tree I had just come down. Turning around, I saw Badger at the base of another tree 30 meters away, who had turned around and was now firing at the creatures behind her.

Sprinting toward her, throwing the last of my smoke mini's behind me, I picked Badger up and turned around, seeing werewolves now closing the distance, ready to tear Badger and me apart. Running for the base of the tree, I saw Wolf already there, waving for me to hurry up.

Reaching Wolf, I traded Badger for one of the falcon blades, and we both proceeded to climb up the tree, the grappling blades assisting us. Looking down, I saw that the werewolves savagely trying to claw their way up after us.

 _If they just controlled themselves a bit, maybe they could actually climb the tree. Not that I would want them to do that._

Looking up, I saw that Wolf had positioned us where I had just earlier stopped myself during my infiltration, below the floor of the station. A bit of a tight squeeze now, considering there were four of us, one of whom was doing his best to try to push one of us off to our death, despite being bound.

After tightening our prisoner's bindings, I put my ear to the floor above me, trying to get some idea of how many were above us now. Hearing a lot of boots moving around at the same time, as well as the alarms, gunfire, yelling, and howling below us, I just couldn't discern anything. Looking at Badger, she only whispered that the fear was practically rampant, and it was too difficult to get an idea of how many sources were above us.

The alarms suddenly went off and the most of the yelling started to quiet down, followed by the gunfire. Eventually, all I heard was the particularly loud voice of who I assumed to be an officer or sergeant. Again, I tried to listen, this time getting better results.

Her volume rose and fell, making it tricky to hear anything. It was like listening to a radio that had a lot of interference, hearing the music piecemeal by piecemeal.

"...I don't give rats ass…. Grimm! There is no reason…"

A pause, a small voice being heard.

"...hell did you see...?!"

Again, a response.

This time, the officer spoke quietly, for a few moments. Eventually, there was movement and I realized that orders had been given. I cursed, wishing I had some idea of they were going to do.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and Badger whispered into my ear:

"Our prisoner is feeling rather confident all of a sudden, right after they started moving around up there."

I looked over at our guest, seeing no facial expression. Rather, he had actually stopped trying to wriggle his way out of the bindings, instead, sitting in what I could only assume to be the most comfortable position he could get into. Yesterday, I would have said it would have been impossible for anybody to have heard the orders uttered above us. Now though… well, I had to make sure.

Whipping out my blade and pressing it against his throat, I growled, "You heard what was going on up there, didn't you."

He shook his head. And I saw a possible clue. I asked the question again, and again saw and felt it. The slight stiffening of his body, as if he was pausing.

By no means did that mean he was lying, but I had to be sure. Wolf asked him this time, softly, with a slight pleading behind the question, trying her best as to help him avoid what I might have to order. Nothing. I looked at Badger and, hesitantly, brought my hand up and tapped my temple.

 _You know what to do._

She pursed her lips, and slowly moved towards the prisoner, putting her hands on his head. She closed her eyes, and I motioned for Wolf to help me restrain the prisoner as Badger began.

It wouldn't be unfair for me to say that Badger's and my abilities' were related, at least in the way a person would be related to his or her first cousin once removed. Badger was a psionic, albeit a lowly one, not at all powerful.

Still, what she could do was frightening enough.

In this case, her physical contact allowed her to not only easily sense the prisoner's emotions, but now probe his thoughts and memories. Or even copy them. Of course, she would have to get past his mental defenses using brute force, or manipulation.

Manipulation was time-consuming, and how long it could take was based on a psi's innate ability, experience, strength, and level of fatigue. Unfortunately, said manipulation was unrealistic at the moment, considering it would literally take days for Badger to manage. She would have to resort with brute force. A very simple technique, something that all psionics could do, but the results were always the same. Ripping apart the defense's in order to find what you need, it was the equivalent of flaying someone who was still alive.

Permanent and incurable insanity was always the result.

I closed my eyes, knowing full well that I might as well murder a prisoner. It was extreme, but time was against us. But I still hated myself for what I had ordered. I had always been cautious of the saying "the ends will justify the means." _Kill or be Killed..._

When the screaming stopped, I was able to look into Badger's eyes and see the grief in her eyes. This wasn't the first time she had done this, but I knew that she was going to be tearing herself apart like she had after every "interrogation". All because I had ordered it. Again.

 _If I have to order Badger to do that one more time, she'll go insane. Hell, I might even go insane. She even looks worse than the last few times._

After I pushed the blade into the back of the neck of our prisoner, Badger looked me in the eye and told us what she had learned.

"The officer's going to call in for reinforcements. She ordered everyone to keep on guard, and that no one was to rest until back up arrived." She paused, rubbing her forehead, before continuing.

"However, their comm device has been down for a bit, and the support team has been working around the clock the last couple of days repairing it. If I heard correctly, it sounded like one of the orders given was to run back to quarters and tell the support team the hurry up. Sounds like they're almost done."

"I was afraid of that. Though that the comm device is back at their quarters to be repaired sounds a little strange." I said.

"It makes sense. They moved the comm device to their quarters, maybe to make it easier to be able to take over between shifts, considering that they are repairing it around the clock." She hissed. I wanted to snap back, but held my tongue, knowing that she was in a lot of emotional pain.

Sitting here, I realized that if any reinforcements came, these guys would find us. It was only a matter of time before they would find us underneath them. If from what I saw and remember of their excellent perception, as long as they were alert and ready, they would easily detect us. They had to be getting suspicious, knowing that their were assailants close by, considering how we managed to disappear all too easily.

I repeated out loud what I had just thought to Badger and Wolf.

"Maybe. Based off the memories I gathered, it sounded like the officer did come to some conclusion."

I looked down, seeing the dozens of creatures that were walking around the tree, their desire for us making them wait, however impatient they were. While it might be possible to fight through the werewolves and bears, there was no doubt that we would also be fired upon as we were fighting. A combination that would get us killed quickly. If we wanted to leave, we were going to have to kill everyone in the base. Easier said than done. For that matter, if we didn't do something quickly, the guards would call in the reinforcements, and then they would have the manpower to begin searching for us.

First thing first, we had to eliminate that comm device. Which made me wonder where the comm device was normally used. I assumed it was supposed to be used in the station, but I wanted to be sure.

"Badger, is there anyone above us?"

She shook her head, then stopped. She looked uncertain.

"Never mind, I'm going to take a look."

Gripping the edge of the floor, I barely pulled myself up, just allowing myself a peek. I saw that the station was now lighted, though I couldn't tell if there was anyone there. I listened, not hearing any talking or movement, and slowly shimmied along the edge of the floor, until I saw saw a doorway in front of me, allowing myself a view into the station again. No one.

 _All those wires popping out of the middle of the room… that has to be where the comm device was connected to. I think I know what we can do._

I went back to our little position and told Badger and Wolf what I saw.

"And what is it you have planned?"

 _A few minutes later…_

Badger pulled herself up onto the station floor, and then moved slowly, moving towards one of the windows before pulling out her battle rifle. She steadied herself, aiming at the head of the guard, and slowly pulled the trigger. The crack of the rifle led to the guard crumpling to the ground of his post.

She kept herself there for a few moments, allowing some of the guards to spot her before she ducked down and withdrew, gunfire beginning to open up on her.

The guards on the post, having seen her, kept up the automatic fire, doing so with grim relief. Meanwhile, another five of them began running across the bridge, pulling out their swords in anticipation of a coming melee. They meant to engage the assailants on their terms. As they entered the station, the suppressing fire halted, and they ran around to circle Badger, meaning to attack her from multiple sides. Some would find her, but the others would discover Jaguar crouched, his folded blade ready.

I sprang forward, taking the initiative. My blade blocking his overhead strike while I used my other fist to punch him across the jaw, pushing him to the side against the railing on my right, stunning him for a moment.

The guard behind him stabbed at me, and I followed up my earlier punch by ramming into Number 1, pushing against his head with the pummel of my blade, dodging the stab. Again, he was pushed against the railing, and this time fell right over it, plummeting to his death.

Glancing left, I saw Number 2 had already recovered, and was committing to a horizontal slice to my chest. I immediately turned, blocked it, then closed in to knee him in the groin. As he fell to his knees in pain, his hand covering them, I saw that there were seven more guards beginning to run over the bridge, swords flashing in the moon light, coming over to try their hand against us.

 _Now or never Wolf,_ I thought as I killed Number 2, having to brutally ram the blade into the tip of his skull, pushing past the concealed resistance blade encountered.

 _Damned 'shields', or whatever they are. Makes killing these guys harder than it needs to be._

I looked left, and saw that Badger, her battle ax slicing downward repeatedly and kicking out to push her opponent back, was doing just fine, having taken one of them down.

As she worked on her second opponent, I spotted the last guard, desperate, move in to jump through a window behind her, hoping to flank her. As I rushed over the front of the window to intercept him, I heard rope snap. Perfect.

I stabbed at the guard, hitting him. But he suddenly jumped back, no wound visible, and assumed a defensive stance, waiting for me to jump over the window. Then a blade appeared through his chest, the classic scene coming to my mind as he looked down at the tip in shock, before he coughed up blood and collapsed.

I looked behind Wolf, and saw the damaged bridge swaying precariously, one of the ends connecting to the station cut. The result was that the bridge was still usable, but only if you came across carefully and one at a time. I saw that four of the guards were missing, presumably having fallen to the creatures below, caught off guard by the sudden severing. The other three were now left trying to balance themselves, trying their utmost to not fall off.

A sickening _shunk_ made me glance and see Badger's final opponent begin to fall to his knees, before I saw Badger swing her ax down for the killing blow, cleaving right past his shoulder and into his chest.

A shot was heard and I suddenly was hit in the left shoulder and fell to the floor. For a second, I wondered who the hell would punch in a fight like this. Then I saw my clothing slowly darken around my shoulder. I realized I had been hit.

That's when I felt the agony.

I had been shot before. Usually, the adrenaline made the pain bearable to a degree, the entrance wound stinging while the exit wound felt like it was on fire. Yet even then, pain had never really unnerved me. And after I had gotten my glyphs, I found myself able to isolate it and then go on to concentrate on whatever task needed to be done.

This time though, I felt like the only purpose my shoulder existed was to torment me. All I could think about was the hellfire in it. It had been unexpected, it just wasn't fair...

 _Stop. Concentrate. Isolate and breath. Breath. You will survive this. You have survived, and You will continue to survive._

I started picking myself up, working on controlling my breathing, hearing the crack of bullets flying over me when I heard the sound of flesh being struck. Wolf cried out. On my knees, looking right I saw her on her side, propping herself with an elbow, struggling to get up. The burning sensation in my shoulder had subsided. It stung and throbbed, but otherwise had stopped trying to kill me.

I heard a bullet bounce and then another bounce. I glanced behind , feeling frail, before seeing a stasis field. The only viable piece of cover Wolf and me had, I realized. Badger was inside the little dome, in a trance, and looking calm. For now.

 _How long can she hold it?_

I sat down, my back to the dome, with Wolf moving next to me as we kept our heads low, unable to move. Thanks to the aimed fire, we were stuck. We did our best to bandage each other, the dressing feeling as if pushed up against a burn. Her wound had gone clean through her thigh, the blood loss at a fair minimal. I looked down next to Wolf and saw Badger's rifle.

If we wanted to leave, they all had to die. _Kill or be killed._

I took it, and started glancing around the dome as I looked for my first target, the first one I was going to have to kill. Seeing the right one, I closed my eyes and prepared myself, slowing my breathing and ignoring my shoulder.

 _Swing around and Kneel. Kneel and Ready. Ready and Steady. Steady and Aim. Aim and Press. Press and Fire._ _Do it. Don't hesitate, don't even think about it. In and out. Kill or be killed. Ready…_

In one fluid motion, I committed myself, the rifle kicking into me and I saw the guard topple over. I hid myself and kept my head down, the suppressive fire suddenly intensifying as if in retribution for the guard I just killed. My mind hurt, my head throbbing, but soon I forced myself through the process again.

 _Pick, prepare, execute._

Each time I closed my eyes in order to prepare, it always took longer to open them, my body resisting, fatigued. Committing never seemed so hard…

I was trembling. God, when was the last time I had done that. How many guards had I killed? How long had I been doing this.?

I opened my eyes and gazed behind me for a change, checking on Badger. With dread suddenly feeling like ice in my chest, I saw that I had not been the one who was trembling. Inside, Badger was now on her hand and knees, having pushed herself over her limits, trying to keep the now shaking dome from shattering.

Something warm touched my right cheek. I looked to my right and saw the dawn, the sun beginning to poke over the mountains. Seeing the light beginning to touch the forest below us, I got a sight of the landscape below me.

 _Majestic… Thank you God for letting me see one last dawn._

The dome next to me broke, and I felt a force hit my head. Sharp, like a dagger.

How strange. The noise of the dome falling to pieces sounding like an explosion, violent and fiery. As if recounting all the violence directed at it into a wail of agony.

I closed my eyes and waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

 _Death works in many strange ways._

I forced my eyelids up. And saw the dawn, again. So tired, and yet I forced myself, gazing across the bridge. Only the burning remains of a structure.

I looked down, and saw the breathing, fetal form of Badger. To my left, I saw my blood soaked bandage on my shoulder, and past that, Wolf, who was on the ground, struggling to get up.

I reached for her shoulder, feeling my vision start to go dark. So much blood… my blood… Her blood.

 _Wolf. Badger._

 _Anya. Cecily._

I collapsed, and went unconscious.

* * *

 _I sat on the bench, my mind gazing off as I thought about when would be the next time I would get to play another hour of video games. Not today, considering it was Sunday. Well, maybe this evening, depending on how tired Mama and Papa were. The ever familiar words of the sacramental prayer flew over my head, the idea of a controller in my hands holding it's sway._

 _I silently yawned, as the bread was passed around, willing time to move faster. Eventually, I saw everyone bow their heads again in prayer for the second half of the sacrament, and looked at the clock._

 _9:20 am. I groaned._

" _Their aura's will need to be activated, if what you say is true."_

 _I blinked, and looked ahead at the bowed head of the priest of was supposed to be conducting prayer, wondering what I had just heard._

" _Sir, I understand why you would want to, but the activation itself could kill them. They're all in critical condition."_

 _My eyes grew wide, as I saw the priest stand up and look across the praying congregation, right at me._

" _I am aware of that, lieutenant. They will survive it. Allow us now."_

 _The priest opened his mouth and stared into me. The words he spoke..._

" _For it is in passing what we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."_

 _I face planted and felt my eyes roll back, everything going dark. Again._

* * *

I opened my eyes slowly to the steady sound of what I knew to be a heart monitor. I was lying on a bed, and saw the white ceiling. The smell of disinfectant was what confirmed my suspicions. I felt slight rumbling, something I couldn't put a finger on.

 _So I'm in a hospital, huh? Wow, considering how I'm absolutely positive that I had died._

I closed my eyes, not wanting to have to talk to anyone while I collected my thoughts.

 _Okay, so I guess I "died" in a dream. The teleporting into a red forest where the moon had blown up and fighting big bad wolves was all just a dream. Rather real though, if you ask me. A lucid dream, if I remember the term correctly. Yeah, That's it. Pretty cool, and wild for that matter. That blast at the temple. What actually happened? Did I just get hit earlier on and go into a coma? Was the mission a success?_

 _Wait, what about that other dream. The one where I was in church. God I can't seem to remember… how did the words go? Something about Immortality and being infinite._

Try as I may, I couldn't remember it.

"I know that you're awake," an unfamiliar voice said. "Your fingers move too much."

I froze and opened my eyes. I came up slowly, feeling very weak, and used my elbows to push me up as I identified my feminine guest.

She was standing about two feet from the my bed, a tall and beautiful woman, about my age. She had pure white hair, comparable to fallen snow, tied up in a bun at the back of her head, with bangs brushed to the right side of her face. Her light blue eyes served to compliment her pale skin. She had a hourglass figure, and a considerable bust. The coat she wore that fell to her knees with slits running down the upper arms, underneath it was what I could call a suit, seeing the formal vest and white shirt beneath that. She wore white pants, though they disappeared into some very tall, heeled thighboots. The black gloves finished the uniform.

She stood at attention, as if a rod had been shoved down her back, her arms crossed behind her, a dignified look on her face

She was clearly military, and she was here for answers, or to debrief me. Most likely about had happened at the temple, and what had gone wrong. I quickly speed through my thoughts, instead thinking of good compliment to get her to smile and relax.

"You know, if you smiled a bit, maybe you wouldn't look like an ice queen." I blurted.

If looks could kill, there would now be an icicle through my heart right now. I mentally smacked my hand into my face, cursing my social anxiety, ADD and the beautiful woman in front of me.

 _Goddammit. Me and my big mouth..._ _This is_ _why I_ _don't talk, let alone go after the pretty girls._ _And a cold_ _looking_ _one at that._ _Because I cannot keep my mouth shut._

I kept my face neutral, despite feeling the temperature in the room drop into the negative. She replied,

"I believe you can see why I am called such. Seeing as the word 'pleasantries' does not apply to you, we can jump ahead to the questions I have. And you would be wise to consider answering truthfully. Unless you would desire to know the real meaning of an ice queen." She then sat down on a chair that was behind her, crossing her legs and arms, an interrogative look on her face.

She doesn't know who I am.

 _She isn't here to debrief me. She wants to interrogate me._

"Who are you?"

"Jose Victor Mendez." I said smoothly, my training kicking in as I remembered all the prepared answers and facts behind my fake identity. Crap, the mission must have gone to utter hell. How much did she know? What about my team? Were they okay? She had to suspect something. She was military, I was positive.

 _I don't think I'm going to get out of this one..._

Her frown deepened, but she continued.

"Very well, Mr… Mendez. Would you tell me what kingdom you hail from?"

I almost said Nicaragua, before I stopped. _Kingdom? What?_ I quickly processed the question.

With horror, I realized that my little adventure in the red forest may not have been a dream. I mentally slapped myself. Yeah, not a dream. The creatures and masked shooters had been real.

 _Shit, this is worse than I thought. Not only are the prepared answers that I have not going to work, I'm not going be able to even lie my way through any questions she going to ask. She is going to see through my BS, all because I'm an alien and have no idea of how their planet works. Oh god, this going to screw me over so badly. Jesus, maybe I should just tell the truth._

That my team and I were aliens to their world, having been teleported by a freaking bomb.

 _And probably get thrown into an insane asylum, if they have anything like that. Or worse._

"I'm not from any kingdom. "

"Oh?"

"Yeah, my parents were… drifter's. You could say home was in the suitcase."

A glint entered her eyes. I held her stare.

"Mr. Mendez, why were you and your partners out in the Forever Fall Forest, engaging the White Fang?"

"Ah, the White Fang. Lets just say I was… looking for a little payback."

"Revenge?"

"Yes..."

"If I may ask, what did the White Fang do?"

I paused, allowing myself to take a moment to breath.

"I don't want to go into any details."

"And your teammates?"

I shook my head.

"Mr. Mendez, answer me this then. Why did you decide to go hunting after the White Fang without having you or your teammate's Aura's unlocked. Or, for that matter, go into the Forever Fall Forest itself, which is known to be teeming with Grimm."

Hearing that word for the second time, I mentally pinned the word to those creatures. _Grimm… Sounds about right._

"We didn't have time to unlock it."

"So in the twenty or so years of your life, you never found the time to unlock your Aura?" Raising an eyebrow, she looked surprised.

"Hey, I did say I grew up a nomad."

"So what about Dust then? We didn't find any Dust rounds on your team, nor any traces of Dust usage in the weapons you used."

"Dust is… rather expensive."

"Indeed."

We were looking coldly into each other's eyes by that point, before she got up and asked the final question.

"The glyphs on your hands. What do they represent?"

"They're… reminders. To make sure I don't forget that there is price that must be paid for each victory."

She looked at my glyphs, then at me. Then, she walked over to the door of my room, and left, hardly making any noise.

I fell back on my bed, and sighed, feeling the need to just scream.

 _That went horribly. If she was even decently trained, it's very likely that she saw through my lies. Worst yet, any stories that Wolf or Badger give, if they haven't already, are not going to line up with mine and vice versa. She's going to be able to confirm that I was lying, thanks to my straight-up BS facts and second-hand sources provided by my team._

Despite being put in a situation I could not have been prepared for, I still felt like it was my fault.

* * *

Winter frowned as she considered the 'answers' she had just been given. It was clear that 'Mr. Mendez' was not who he said he was. Just like the other girls, 'Ms. Martinez' and 'Ms. Lopez.'

 _He says they were out there on a revenge mission._ _Yet_ _o_ _ne of the girls_ _tells me about a artifact they were looking for, and the other talks about how that they were out hunting._

There was no point comparing the other facts to each other, amusing as that could be.

No. Now, positive that they were lying, she wanted to try to get the truth from them. Though, admittedly, she was unsure why they were lying. And that made her hesitant about resorting to more forceful methods.

 _I seriously doubt any sort of friendly association between our guests and the White Fang. The remains of the firefight prove that much. I can't find any reason for them to have to lie, even if they do seem to be idio- no. They're not stupid. Ignorant seems to be the more applicable word._

What she had seen in their eyes, if barely, shocked her. They hadn't recognized the words 'Grimm', or 'White Fang.'

Maybe there was an excuse for not knowing the White Fang. But Grimm? No, that was just ridiculous. There was no human on Remnant that did not know who the Grimm were.

 _Rather than try to find the truth behind their identities, maybe I should instead consider trying to find out why they are lying to begin with. It may very well be that they are fugitives. No, that still wouldn't explain the ignorance behind the Grimm and White Fang. Why are they lying? What are they hiding?_

 _Are they lying because of their ignorance? That would be rather childish of them._

 _Or is it habit for them to lie? Have they been ordered and trained to lie about their identities? That would identify them as military or intelligence in that case. It would make sense, considering the scars and weapons they had. Though, whoever had trained them in lying obviously did a poor job. And for that matter, what armed organization on Remnant would train operatives who didn't recognize the Grimm._

 _This isn't making any sense._

Winter paused, then looked at the scroll in front of her. The report still needed to be written.

 _How is General Ironwood going to react to the fact three unknown, ignorant yet capable warriors, who despite not have their Aura's unlocked, managed to destroy a small White Fang cell, and survive the Forever Fall Forest for a time?_

No, she would not send the report quite yet. _Let's see if I can get a few more... answers from our guests._

* * *

 **Hopefully, you've have been enjoying my unplanned writing of this OC/RWBY. The story will weave into RWBY's plot, though I'm not sure to what degree. Yet.**

 **The character's I created are based and twisted off some... media that I enjoy. Well, the abilities and weapons specifically. See if you can identify them.**

 **If you see something you like or dislike, let me know. I would enjoy responding to a few reviews, get an opportunity to improve my writing.**


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Escape and Evade

 _4 days, 22 hours after Yucatan anomaly_

Looking out the window of the ship at the setting sun, I tried to fall asleep. No such luck. There was too much on my mind.

The last two days had been agonizing, though not in the way an imprisoned operative would have thought. No, I was being tortured in a rather different matter. I was bored, the view of the landscape below having become tedious, and the examining of the escorting airship about 300 meters away having lost it's appeal.

 _At least they were kind enough to give me a pamphlet on Aura. And a window for my quarters._

Despite the fact that I should be in a critical state, lying in a hospital bed while I tried to heal from my shoulder wound and severe blood loss, I was now occupying what I could only imagine were some officer's room.

The room I was in, while rather spartan, still offered me privacy and a little room as I slowly got up and started pacing. I still felt weak and a little sluggish, as if feeling the after effects of a 10k run earlier that day. But the entrance and exit wounds on my shoulder were scabbing, already ten to eleven days into the healing process, from what the nurse had already told me.

I had woken up only two days ago.

The only reason I wasn't incapacitated right now was that they, whoever my hosts were, had activated my Aura.

Aura, if I understood correctly, was the manifestation of one's soul. The user was able to use it to shield him or herself from injury, as well as passively speed up any needed healing. It explained the punishment that I had seen the White Fang take back in the Fall Forest.

No wonder 'Ice Queen' had seemed surprised at the fact that I had gone into combat without my Aura activated. It seemed that in this world, if you had any intention of fighting, you would want to be able to have your Aura activated.

What was just as interesting were the semblances I had read about. Apparently, given enough time and experience with my aura, I would be able to discover and fight with abilities that reflected my personality.

 _Now, that would be lovely._

I stopped, then moved to the chair that 'Ice Queen' had occupied only a few hours ago, sitting on it as I pondered the date that we had had.

" _So this is one of your weapons?" She said as she showed me a picture of my folding blade on her tablet. "A dangerous weapon, If I do say so."_

 _I mentally cringed as I realized that someone else had been touching my weapons. "Care to explain?"_

" _The small blade. You would have to get into a very close distance to be able to attack someone."_

" _And your point being?"_

" _I noticed the telescopic nature of your blade, and the manner in which you could fold the weapon. An interesting mechanism. Not only do I wonder why anyone would want such... characteristics on a weapon, but I'm curious as to who created it."_

" _I did."_

" _To meet what expectations?" She glared at me, and was beginning to open her mouth to continue before the door to my room quickly opened, a guard walking in to whisper urgently in her ear. I caught the word "Fang."_

 _She sighed, and stood up to leave._

" _We will finish this tomorrow," Her voice implying that she was growing impatient._

I blinked my eyes and stood up, walking to the door and putting an ear to it as I listened for the faint whirring once more.

 _Robots? At this point, anything's possible, considering that I'm in a flying ship. It would make sense. Machine's don't fatigue like a person does._

I sighed and turned around, still trying to think of a way I could try to escape my room without raising the alarm.

I heard the door open, and again turned, expecting to see Ice Queen.

"That was fast. How did you guys get out and gather our equipment so quickly?" I grinned.

Badger replied, "I felt someone walk past my door and quickly dominated him. Turned out he was an officer, and I managed to get him to excuse the robot guards at our doors."

"She used him to good effect for as long as possible." Wolf piped in with a grin of her own. "Seems that a lot of these robots of theirs are used. We were able move quickly enough to get us 'escorted' into the lab where they had our equipment, before she lost control. It was then matter of helping him and the eggheads we found take a little nap. In short, she kicked ass." She grabbed Badger's shoulder, pulling her into a hug.

The poor officer. He was going to have a hard time telling his superiors as to why he had ordered the guards off away from the posts.

I started smiling, delighted for Badger. Domination, mind control, possession. A lot of names, a lot of history, but they were all the same thing. The act itself was difficult, though if you managed to surprise someone, you had a better chance. Still, Badger must have really struggled for a bit, trying to get in his head.

Badger only shook her head, "The officer was tired as well. He didn't put up much of a fight went I fought with him. It was easy."

"Whatever Badger. Considering that you snagged a trained military officer, you should be pleased at what you managed."

"Like I said, it was easy."

I paused as I considered that, only to be interrupted as Wolf dropped a duffel bag in front of me.

I quickly stripped and changed into the smelly wear of my familiar combat dress, the black clothing comforting, despite a hole that lined up with a shoulder wound of mine.

I put the last article on, the hood going over my head, and then saw my mask. The skeletal nature of it looked up at me as I grabbed it, the small "eyes" staring. I felt the metal, and turned it around, checking the optics.

" _Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."_ Thinking of the scripture as I put the mask on. I adjusted it to the shape of my face, and I tightened the strap around the back if my head, securing it. I grabbed my weapons and motioned the girls forward.

I was the last one to walk into the quiet and darkened corridor. I brushed something and looked down, seeing the tattered remains of the robots. I looked up at Wolf, who only shrugged. How had I not heard the takedowns?

 _Fine, we'll get to that later-_

An alarm started to go off, the lights brightening and we bolted down the corridor, looking for a means of escape.

"This is not drill, I repeat, this is _not_ a drill. All hands to combat stations." the voice kept repeating, urgent.

We reached a ladder and Badger, who had point, decided down was the way to go. We slid down onto another deck, this time in a wider hallway, doors lining the walls, bunk beds visible inside some of the rooms. The crew quarters.

" _FREEZE! ON THE FUCKING GROUND!"_ a voice roared behind us.

I glanced behind us, and saw a trio of marines coming up to us, carrying batons in their hands, pistols holstered away.

"Non-lethal." I whispered to the girls, not wanting to get any of their blood on our hands.

We turned and charged them, closing the distance as we attacked them, lashing out at their legs and arms. I grabbed and twisted the lead guards' wrist as I ducked to slash the back of his calf with my blade, before quickly standing, twisting further breaking the wrist. Dropping him, I looked over to see the girls finish up, then looked ahead, seeing crew members turning and beginning to run.

We pressed on, the crew members only trying to lock themselves up in whatever rooms they could find. Coming to another ladder, we went down again, this time finding ourselves in a small hanger.

The wall on our left was made up of circular doors, each marked with the large red words: " **ESCAPE POD**."

 _Perfect._

"We still haven't finished our previous session, Mr. Mendez," Ice Queen. "And besides, you really don't want to go down to the surface right now."

 _I really need to get some eyes on the back of my head,_ I thought as I turned to identify where Ice Queen was, who was walking up to me, a saber in her hand. She brought out a small device up to her mouth.

I tapped on Badger, motioning her to get the door behind us open as I quickly grabbed my bow.

"Schnee to Bridge, lock dow-" I interrupted her, my arrow shot knocking the device out of her hand, and then bouncing off her cheek. I breathed, realizing her Aura had taken the brunt of it.

She stumbled back, but recovered quickly, and I saw a bruise now forming below her eye, rage evident as she went into a combat stance. Suddenly I felt myself being pulled back, falling to the floor of the escape pod and watching Wolf close the hatch in front of me.

"GO GO GO!" Wolf screamed, as I heard a loud clang, seeing the tip of a saber just poking out, a few centimeters from her face.

I was released, and then slammed into the hatch, the acceleration pushing me up against it as I braced myself, feeling my stomach crawl up my throat.

 _UGHHHHHHH! I'm going to be sick…._

Just as it had begun, the pod went quiet and we started slowing down, a now peculiar motion beginning.

I fell to the floor, trying not throw up as the pod began to swing back in forth in the wind, the descent making itself noticeable. Eventually, we hit the ground, and the hatch fell away, Wolf and Badger having to carry me from the pod as I puked all over myself.

* * *

 _20 minutes later_

Dabbing my shoulder wound and feeling the warmness, I pulled my hand out. Blood.

Me and Badger were leaning on tree, waiting impatiently for Wolf to finish her survey of the area. She had climbed up, looking around to see it there was anything noteworthy that we could head to.

The deep _dew_ of the firearms and the high pitched noise of the large caliber machine guns picked up again, our 'hosts' still trying to push their way through the Grimm in order to reach us, the same Grimm we had managed to avoid. Though how long we would be able to do so I wasn't sure.

The roar of something monstrous suddenly caught our attention, turning us around. I saw in the distance the powerful searchlights of the VTOL's now all focusing on a target, their machine guns continuing to support those poor souls in whatever they were fighting now.

Suddenly, Wolf slammed to the ground next to us, in what I assumed was a controlled drop off the tree, landing on her feet, her Aura, if I deduced correctly, flaring a little.

 _Turns out Aura bestows a user some enhanced attributes. The way we managed to outmaneuver the Grimm is only the tip of the iceberg in what an Aura-user can do._

"So guess what I saw with my little eye?"

"What, a deer?"

Badger only said, " More Grimm?"

Wolf smiled, a chiding look in her eyes.

" You guys need to be a bit more optimistic than that..."

* * *

"Ms. Schnee, your aggressive action is only stirring up the local Grimm, and the fact that you already penetrated well into our borders indicates a level of rashness about this chase that makes me wary as to even thinking about considering allowing you into the city, let alone continue to hunt these personages down." The councilman yelled angrily.

"And for that matter Ms. Schnee, you cannot seriously expect us to let you extradite these suspects of yours when you refuse to acknowledge what it is that they have down."

Winter ground her teeth in frustration, knowing very well that the Trio were getting farther away by the second. The patrols were being slowed down by the Grimm, and now the only chance of catching them before they reached Vale was to land ahead of the them and ambush them.

"Councilman, with all due respect, I am aware that the fact that they escaped will not convince you, but you must understand, these warriors are not to be trifled with in any way."

"Duly noted Ms. Schnee, considering your invasion of Vale territory."

"Sir, please allow me to explain. This 'Trio,' if you will, are completely ghosts. We have no idea as to who they are."

"And this is concerning how again?"

Winter was ready to start punching the screen, wanting to shake him by the shoulders

"Sir the fact that they escaped from our custody should be frightening enough. You need to understand that they have capabilities that we, frankly, are still unaware of."

"Semblances?"

"No."

"Then what Ms. Schnee?"

"That is the problem. We were in the process of interrogation when they managed to escape."

"And where did you pick them up?"

"In the Forever Fall Forest, 300 km's to the northeast. They had just finished conducting a firefight with a small White Fang cell."

"And?"

"We counted 30 or so White Fang casualties. More are likely. But what's shocking is that this Trio did not have their Aura's unlocked."

"Come again? They were in the Forever Fall Forest, just the three of them, without their Aura's unlocked?"

"Yes."

Winter hated having to give another person, let alone a foreign leader, the initial report of anything. She had been waiting to hand this one to her superior. But that would have to wait. After all, " _There is a price that must be paid for each victory."_

 _Besides if this only what is needed to allow me to enter Vale, then the price has indeed been small…_

"If what you say is true, then I may consider a small contingent being allowed to operate within Vale. And I do mean a small one. However, I will need to organize the details of this extradition with your superiors. So in the mean time, we will not willingly assist you in gathering these 'fugitives,' not until the necessary agreements are made."

 _Better than nothing, I suppose._

* * *

Moving from the forest, I noticed the earthen defenses laid out in front of us. They reminded me of anti-tank ditches, except for the fact that there were sharp, large diameter spikes in them that, while posing little threat to a human, where ideally sized for a Grimm.

Moving past the ditches we came upon what had be bunkers, clearly a means to which make the ditches behind us into kill zones. The fact that they were empty was unnerving, but I supposed that didn't matter, not when I saw the massive field that any enemy, _we_ , would have to cross in order to get to the town ahead of us.

 _No walls. This isn't meant to stop an attack, more impede one really. Of course, the attackers that got past the ditches would be pretty damn vulnerable on this field._

Running at a conservative pace, we continued across the field. The sun went down, and the lights of the town became became visible. From a good five kilometers. I could tell that, despite the low profile of the lights, there were a hell of a lot of them. As we got closer, I began to reali-

 _KERSCHHH!_

 _The fuck is this shit-!_

We immediately sprinted out of the white-red cloud, covering our eyes as we tried to hold our breath against whatever they had just gassed us with.

Not ten meters from the cloud did we start to feel the effects. Ours eyes began to water and soon we felt like we were breathing fire, if the gasping and coughing had anything to say.

"Fuck, split up _*cough cough*_ and zigzag." I choked out, and we turned up the speed of our run.

The kind sirs, realizing that now only one would only be hit from a single canister, decided to start trying to give each of us our very own canister, at the consideration of what I suspected to be a certain Ice Queen.

Our efforts to zigzag and dodge the gas canisters were effective, though sometimes one of us would still get caught in one of the clouds, and down he went, his momentum managing to help him escape the cloud. One of us would have to turn back and help him up before we kept going on.

But we still closed the distance, the familiar look of ditches that had to signify the border to the town now seconds away. Looking to the left, we saw a gap in the defenses, a gate into the town. Running through it, we stopped.

Ice Queen was standing there with her saber at the ready, and behind her were a six or so soldiers, ready to leap to action as they watched from the interior of a VTOL. They were positioned at the end of a road that went down a another field that bordered the town.

"This will be your only warning. Surrender, or we will use violent force." Ice Queen raised her saber at us.

"Fine." I said.

Wolf drew her katana and charged, all within the blink of an eye. _Since when the hell did Wolf get that much faster?_ I thought, as Schnee abruptly dashed forward and met her, the speed she exhibited as well now making my mouth drop.

The two immediately began dueling, and for a few seconds, Badger, me and the troops could only watch the dance. It was beautiful but savage at the same time, the way they flowed and glided in their movement, the sound of swords clashing a result of each attack and counter.

The soldiers made the first move, leaving the interior of the ship as they pulled out batons, moving in to subdue us. Badger and me followed suit, and we all converged in the middle into a brawl. I sprang forward and landed onto of a soldier, knocking him down and stunning him as I rolled forward and stabbed a another in the knee. He went down yelling and I quickly rolled right, using my momentum to quickly push off my hands and kick him.

 _Goddamn, even I seem to be moving faster. And since when can I just straight up kick a guy who is about twice my size. Me, 169 cm guy who weighs about 63 kg._

Stabbing him in the shoulder before a kicked and injured his knee, I kneed him in the groin before I pushed him over. I turned around and saw the outline of Wolf fly and slam into me, causing us to go off each other at an angle like what you would see with a pair of billiard balls.

I pushed myself up, the force of that hit making my chest hurt, the ache of the gas and fatigue from earlier now rather obvious. Badger was now engaging Ice Queen, but she was already losing decisively. As I rushed at Schnee, she knocked Badger to the ground, and kicked her. Hard. As in make her roll thirty feet hard.

I slashed downward, but Schnee parried and countered my attack in what seem to be a split second. I barely dodging it and attacked once again, but she again countered. And back and forth we went like that.

 _Sonuvabitch_ _, she's deadly. I'_ _ve always considered myself pretty skilled,_ _but_ _she_ _'_ _s already gained_ _the upper hand,_ I thought as I blocked one of her attacks, then another, before having to dodge a stab from her other needle-like blade.

She lunged forward, striking out before she flipped over me and, as I turned around, slashed me across my front. The pain making me flinch as I staggered back and quickly ducked, then rushing forward to tackle her legs as she again jumped over me.

I immediately went into a roll, dodging her downward stab, as stopped, turning around to see Wolf now jumping in to attack.

 _Wolf seems to be able to hold her own, though I have to admit that I don't think she would be able to win._ I rushed in to assist her, me and Wolf trading spots whenever one of us would stagger or get hit, preventing Schnee from following up on her attack as she had to deal with the two of us. Badger came in behind her and that's when we put her into the defensive.

She quickly jumped over us, getting out of the circle of death that had come upon her and dashed quickly in the direction of the town, putting a good distance between her and us. Stopping, she stabbed the ground, and did something that made me swear for a second that she was some evil bitch sorceress.

A circle within a glyph spinning in it appeared in front of her, and suddenly two Grimm formed from it, white colored and standing very tall, looking just as deadly as their brothers. With her backup, she dashed forward, charging with her Grimm, beginning another attack.

I tapped the shoulders of my sisters-in-arms twice, and they acknowledged, nodding slightly. We then rushed forward, yelling as we counter-charged, our weapons held ready. We were ready.

But a few seconds before we collided, the girls suddenly jinked into my path, before moving quickly outwards, sprinting for all their worth around the white Grimm and towards the town. I focused, and sprang up, doing a perfect replica of the flip that Ice Queen had done earlier to me. Right over them. And I even left a little something. Six high explosive mini's that I thought were a perfect thank you gift for the earlier gas attack.

The high explosive mini's wasn't very powerful, relying mostly on the shrapnel to do the damage. When you considered their small size, they weren't very deadly. But they could rather difficult to notice, and if you used them at the right place and time, could be a big assist.

The sharp cracks of the explosions was music to my ears as I rushed forward into the field, seeing the town ahead come closer, the lights of safety.

* * *

Winter released the glyph, cursing at the manner that she had let her frustration get a hold of her before she had charged. Turning around, she could no longer see her prey, and cursed again, the expletives rolling of her tongue in a manner that would have had her tongue cut off had her father been there.

She had underestimated them, if barely. Regardless, she had paid the price, though the fact that she could only bring a squad in with her hadn't helped. Then again, they had been hit by some of the riot control gas. Dissipating the Grimm she had summoned, she turned back and went to assist her troops.

Helping the last one onto the dropship, she got on, and the craft began to ascend, flying back to the airship. Winter felt her scroll buzz and she retrieved it, reading the name of the caller:

 _James Ironwood._

This wasn't going be good.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Repurpose

5 days after the Yucatan Anomaly

The looks that people gave him as we ran down the street were disturbing me. Or rather it was the lack of reaction. They didn't seem concerned as to the weapons we had. Yes, they looked at us, wondering why we had to run, but it was the slight questioning look, the one where you saw a person run down a street, and you might hope that he would make it in time to wherever he was going.

For that matter, where were we going?

We turned a corner, and stopped, almost bumping into a couple who were enjoying a treat. I peeked around, looking for any pursuers, mostly in the form of the evil ice sorceress bitch, who we had managed to escape.

Nothing, just people. Lots of civilians, going about on their business on this fine night. I turned around, moving to speak to Wolf, when I saw the couple. Scrunching their noses, looking slightly disgusted, they stood up, and walked away.

 _What… Oh, they must of smelled us,_ I thought as I looked down at myself, seeing the grime and who knows what on my black clothing. The smell finally hit me. _Jeez, I don't blame them for not wanting to be near us._

We took off our masks, and the three of us began to walk down the street. The sun had gone down, and being evening, people where out shopping in what now saw to be a commercial street. Lots of small businesses.

We saw an alley and turned into it, walking a bit before turning around another corner, this time going into a much darker alley. We stopped. I looked around, and saw nobody.

We were safe, on our own accord, for the first time in many days.

"Now what the hell do we." Wolf said. "We don't have any money on us, and we aren't in the best condition." I looked down, and saw Wolf balance herself, trying to stay off her injured leg.

That was a very good question. I opened my mouth, then closed it. For one of the very few time in my life, I had no idea as to what to do.

Being military and intelligence, we had never had to deal with the problem of getting our hands on food, water, shelter and the such. The necessities. Of course, we knew had to take care of ourselves, considering we had to go undercover before. No, it was a case of...

 _Where do we start?_

As I thought about that, I heard a slight scuffling. I peeked around the corner

Coming down the alley from the street we had just left, a couple of shifty looking guys in suits had grabbed an immodestly dressed woman, and were dragging her. To what business, I could only assume, but it couldn't be anything good.

I turned and quickly beckoned the girls to follow me and we withdrew farther into the alley, hiding ourselves in the darkness. The thugs turned the corner with their scantly dressed prisoner, and started walking in our direction. Just as I was about to lunge forward, knowing that we would be found, they stopped, and they slammed the woman against the wall.

"Right you little skank, where the hell are the missing parts of the package that Negra sent?!" Thug One said, as he held a sword up to her throat.

In a rather calm demeanor, she replied. "I gave everything to her contact, just as she asked me to. Frankly, I don't see what it is that has your boss so ticked off."

"Bitch, you know what happened. Don't play all little-miss-innocent, we know you didn't give some of it to her contact." Thug Two said, his sword probing the short skirt the woman wore.

"I don't have anything. All I was told to do was to give the package to the correct contact after I had done my… business with him, which I did. I have to assume that he screwed something up."

"Hah, bitch please, do you realize that the contact says never got the some of the Dust. Negra knows that for fact, considering that the "contact" is one of our guys." Thug One snarled.

"You fucking thief, we've known about some some sort of hole, considering that we've kept getting threats that we weren't delivering the whole of our side of the deal. Of course, it was an minuscule amount going missing, so we had to do a little bit of looking, and a small sting."

The woman said nothing, then hung her head, sighing.

 _A prostitute,_ _if that's what she means by business. These guys are going to slot her._ I thought, as I crouched and moved forward, motioning for Wolf to follow me

"It's going to be a sorry day in hell when we bring you to Negra. A shame, really, considering how new you are to the streets. Seeing how much you've fucked us over, I think I'm going to help Negra with the punishment right now." Thug One continued. "Jack, bring the car over, I'm going to get started with our little minx here." Jack nodded, if hesitantly, and went down the corner, leaving the thug to start pressing himself against her body while he held his sword to her throat, the other hand beginning to unbutton the few clothes she wore. The prostitute looked ready to scream, but couldn't, not without dying.

I lunged forward, Shadow Striking into the man neck, instantly killing him, his body immediately crumbling into ash. I put my hand on the woman's mouth, just as she started to scream.

Wolf had already sprinted forward, a Cobra Blade ready. Jack was just turning around the corner, before Wolf grabbed him, and brought him back into the shadows in a chokehold, repeatedly stabbing him in the chest.

The woman I held tried to knee me, and I adjusted my angle to her and raised my thigh, taking it. Suddenly, she was like a tiger, trying to claw my eyes and stomp on my ankle, doing anything to get away from her new captor. As I began to subdue her, she went limp and I had to hold her up, her breasts now in full view of me. I went red and looked away.

 _God forbid, I didn't need that… Well, actually. No, no no no._

I laid her down, and saw Badger withdraw a hand from her, then look up.

"What do you mean to do with those keys?" Badger had me confused, before I turned around to see Wolf there, cleaning the blade she had used, the body of the Jack the thug behind her.

"He mentioned something about a car, so I'm going to go try and find it. What do you want to do with _her_?" Wolf pointed, in a rather accusing manner.

I paused and looked at her. She looked young from what I could tell, and was on the curvaceous side, fox ears amongst her short, blonde-

Fox ears. I reached down and slowly felt them. I was stunned, they felt like dog ears. Badger reached down to feel them and sat down. Sitting down as well, I was no longer concerned with the revealing nature of the woman, but instead was now beginning to look for any other signs of her fox heritage.

Tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked up. " I'm going to go find to find the car and bring it about."

"Right. Badger, see if you can do something about the body."

Badger got up and picked up the body, dragging it deeper into the dark alley as I picked up the girl and carried her to the corner.

Eventually, a car pulled up, and Wolf got out, beckoning us forward. I turned around, and saw Badger there, a wallet in her hands. We picked up the woman, and we rushed her into the back seat of the car, closing the door as Wolf sped us away.

"Do you want me to wake her?"

I nodded, and Badger put her hand on the fox girl's head, while I put a hand over her mouth lightly, my other hand readying my folded blade behind my back.

The girl woke up slowly, moaning as she opened her eyes. Suddenly they went wide, remembering what had happened in the alley. I spoke.

"Shh shh shh," I soothed, "we aren't here to hurt you, we just got you out of a nasty spot."

Her eyes were still wide, but she didn't scream. I pulled my hand away, the blade in the other ready to pop out.

"What's your name." Badger asked in a friendly tone, backing up as to allow her to sit up.

"Pearl."

"Right Pearl, I have a request to make. You wouldn't happen to have a place that we could go, one that's off the beaten path?"

She looked at me, considering the risk of taking three armed strangers to wherever she would go.

She nodded.

* * *

I stood next to the loveseat that Wolf and Badger both occupied, the girls now wearing spare clothes that Pearl had donated (I was wearing attire that Badger had bought using the money she had gotten from Jack's wallet). When we had all arrived at Pearl's small apartment, we had quickly showered and cleaned up, finally no longer smelling like complete crap.

We waited for Pearl to speak, who was slouched on her chair, slowly smoking a cigarette with her eyes closed. The smell made my nose twitch. I had never bothered with the habit, considering it's addictive nature too risky. Though neither did Pearl, considering that she nor her room smelled like nicotine.

When all she had left was the butt in her fingers, she threw into the empty glass in front of her and finally spoke.

"I'm not sure why you would help a faunus like me, Jag."

 _Faunus. Is that what she would be called? From the sound of her skepticism, discrimination against Faunus is common. That would explain a reason behind the White Fang._

"There are people out there who treat everyone equally with the respect they should have." I replied.

"I know that. I even know a few people like that. What bothers me is that the majority of those people aren't known for slinking in the shadows." She brought her gaze on us, examining, looking into each of us with those dark amber eyes.

"Like you three. Besides, I doubt they would have been willing to save a faunus from being raped, even if they could do something. Then you three come up and kill those punks."

"Who were those guys? Sounded like you put your fingers somewhere you shouldn't have." Badger asked, trying to change the subject.

"Some fellow co-workers of mine. I may have been gotten careless over my last… venture." She was hesitant, though a grin came on her face.

"You were trying to make some extra profit?" I said, quietly, as I tried to not interrupt my train of thought.

"Maybe. But I guess I wasn't being discreet enough. Ah well, it doesn't matter, I won't be here for long." Pearl paused for moment. "Though, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get out now."

Wolf tilted her head. "What do you mean? Are you not from here?"

Pearl's eyes narrowed. "Mistral. I'm from Mistral."

"Ah. And are you going back-"

"No, there's nothing left there for me. And, I'm sorry to say, I'm not going to say where I'm going."

We nodded in understatement.

Pearl leaned back into the chair, sighing. "Where do you guys live? Nearby? Or down in the industrial section?"

"Well..." I replied, " that's the thing, we don't really have a place to stay at, for the moment."

"Oh, are you guys from another kingdom?"

I hesitated, trying to come up with a name. "Nomads. We grew up outside the kingdoms."

"Are you guys related?"

I froze. _Just shake your head, don't let her know…_

Wolf nodded.

The look on my face must've told Pearl something, "Was I not supposed to know?"

Wolf and Badger looked up at me, glaring.

"Yeah. It's not something that people tend to know about. We don't try to broadcast the fact, considering our line of work." _What the are you thinking right now... Anya?_

Pearl brought her hand up and started tapping her cheek, obviously now curious about something. "So you guys need a place to stay, huh?"

I raised my eyebrows.

"No, I don't necessarily trust you guys all the way, and I don't want to know why you're here. However, if you need a place to stay, you're welcome to here. Most nights, anyway. I might bring a client over here."

"Riiight. But what about this Negra? It sound like she's on a warpath." Badger piped up.

"She doesn't know where I live, and I'm not going to need to offer my services for now, considering I have enough money to go where I need to. I'll just stay here for now, and wait for it all to blow over. Now, what are you guys going to do while you're here?" Pearl now had an expectant look on her face.

"Well that's where we wanted to ask you this. Would you be willing use your contacts to spread the word of some… specialists who are in need of some work."

"That's not what I meant..." Pearl raised her eyebrows again. "What makes you say that I have said contacts?"

"I have to assume that whatever you were dropping off was illegal in it's nature, so you would have had to sell it to less than reputable buyers."

She delayed. "What should I list down as your skills?"

I paused and looked down at the girls.

Wolf shrugged, so Badger began for us. "Sabotage, espionage,"

"Asset protection," Wolf said.

"Direct Action, and if they have anything else in mind, we'll be willing to discuss something." I finished.

"I'll spread the word. Might take some time. Are you guys military or something?"

I cocked my head and gave a small smile. "Maybe. For now, we need to rest for a bit, so we'll be staying close by, get to familiarize ourselves a bit with the city."

The room filled with an awkward silence, as we stood there, watching Pearl process the information. Badger spoke, breaking our thoughts.

"So, back to your original question, how do you want to split chores while we're here?"

* * *

 _4 days later…_

I walked down the street, my hands in my pockets, head bowed slightly, but still able to scan the new street around me. It was evening and with work now over for the majority of people, they were now out and about, making it easy for me to hide in the crowd.

It was unnecessary precaution, a habit. The day after we had arrived in Vale, as we had begun to wake up, Pearl had came out of her room, her touchscreen phone, a 'scroll' as I would later discover, in her hand. She had a strange look.

"So… I think you guys should take a look at this." She showed us an electronic wanted poster. If you could call it that. The only thing that I read was a public notice with regards to " Three highly dangerous subjects that were possibly within the city of Vale." Any information given with regards to these personages would be rewarded as appropriate. The charges listed only made us look more mysterious.

 _Trio escaped Atlas prison… resisted arrest, criminal possession of weapons, assault, known connection(s) to organized crime._

I peered over the screen to look at Pearl. She was still giving me the strange look. Then she shook her head slowly, putting her scroll away.

"So… you feeling better?" I asked. She tilted her head, "Fine. And like I said, I don't want to know why you are here." I grinned, "I have no idea as to what you're talking about." She rolled her eyes and went back into her room.

The last few days, me and the girls took the time to either research using Pearl's scroll, walk around exploring Vale's commercial district, and do chore's.

As I walked down the street, I looked to my right, seeing an alleyway that looked a little off the beaten path. I turned and started down it, my folded blade ready, looking at the shady people who were walking around.

Continuing down, I soon found that this alley was home to what I had to suspect was the more darker side of Vale's business life. It made sense, considering how close we were to the industrial district of Vale. I saw a sign that caught my interest.

 **Gwaed's Weapon and Armor Manufactory: For your Grimm needs!**

I smiled. _Let's take a look._

Walking in, I noted the smell of heavy oils, and the sound of a… drill?

It was dim, but I could clearly see the weapons on display around me. Swords, spears and axes barely scratched the surface of what I saw. Rifles, missile launchers, javelins, SMGs. There more exotic weapons, some that I actually recognized, others not so. Many had a used look to them.

"So lad, how can I help you?"

I looked over to the direction of the voice, seeing an old man hunched over counter. He wore a machinist's apron, and wore glasses. Walking up to converse with him, I noticed that he was blind in one of eyes, a long vertical scar run through it.

"Oh just looking around."

"Ah, see something you like? Or do you need a weapon built? "

Well, since he was asking. "Do you do any modifications?"

"Indeed."

"How about upgrades?"

He nodded again, and then raised a hand, beckoning.

I gave him my folding blade. He handled and studied the weapon, familiarize himself with it, his old gnarled tracing it. I watched, wondering if he would be able to figure it out.

Suddenly he twirled the blade, unlocking it, and then the blade popped out, the fifty centimeters of dull, high grade steel in front of his face. The dark colored eye studied it, moving up and along the edge of my blade.

"A telescopic blade. Steel?"

I nodded.

He raised an eyebrow. "It's been many years since I've seen steel used in a weapon. And you've used it to good effect in your fights?"

I nodded.

"Hmmm, how interesting. Steel is not a bad alloy, though it is outdated. Though, I have to admit that this steel is of a very good grade. Can it use Dust?"

I shook my head.

"Well, there you go. It wouldn't be difficult to add a Dust-"

"No, that's not what I'm actually interested, though I do have friends who may be interested in upgrading their weapons. What I was curious was weapon construction."

"Ah, of a design that you have in mind."

"Two, actually."

The matter of fact was that in this world, when everyone I had fought had had Auras, you would want to have heavy hitting weapons. Aura could make any weapon formidable, but I wasn't confident in my bow anymore, not after that fight with Schnee. And as for taking down the massive Grimm, yeah, forget it. Fortunately, the materials and technology they had developed allowed them to make hand-held weapons that could only be seen as fictitious back home. The result of experience from many millennia in a constant state of threat, I suppose.

I had a good melee weapon, so what I now needed were ranged weapons.

The AS Val was the first thing that came to mind. I needed a rifle that was quiet, relatively speaking, and I had gotten the chance to use it once when I had teamed up with some Spetsnaz GRU in Vladivostok. For a silenced firearm, it was actually quiet. And it packed a hell of a punch, though the effective range wasn't as good as a typical assault rifle. But it did have good armor penetration capability.

The other weapon was to, well, touch on my more, " _ **surprise mothfucker**_ " tactics. A double short barreled, side by side shotgun.

I showed him the idea behind the weapons, describing the specifications behind them, drawing them quickly by hand, and then the modifications I would want.

Gwaed thought about it, "So you want them to be foldable and compact, like your folding blade here. With an integrated silencer for the rifle. Interesting. To be frank with you, these aren't going to be difficult to make. Do you want be to combine the two systems?"

"Combine?"

"Indeed, I can combine the two weapons, and you would be able to transform the weapon between the shotgun and rifle. For a price of course."

I was intrigued. "How much overall?"

"Anything between 12,000 to 25,000 Lien."

I raised my eyebrows at the price's being mentioned. "And that includes the combination?"

He nodded. "Quality does play a part as well. I can make them so that they're highly reliable, or make them fold up easier and faster. Weight tends to be a big factor behind price, as does size."

"So me paying, say, 15,000 would get me what?"

We kept on discussing, getting onto the dimensions of the weapons and the quality I would want them, the ammunition, size, when I would want them. Paperwork, more paperwork.

We settled on a delivery date of two months, with 19,050 Lien for the weapon, and another 2,000 for ammunition. I didn't have the money, so Gwaed would put the project far down the order list he had.

Walking out of the shop into alleyway, I started heading back to Pearl's apartment. Walking down the street, I could only smile as I considered the weapons that I would have in a couple of months. Of course, I had to get my hands on the Lien during that period of time.

But I figured it wouldn't be long before me and the girls got our first job.

* * *

Ozpin was standing in his office, looking outside as he contemplated the call he had just given to the Council with regards to the unusual Nation Wide Notice given a few days ago. As usual, they had told him nothing, only willing to ignore his questions.

His desk chirped and he turned around and went to it, turning the built-in scroll on as he sat down.

"James, how are you doing?"

"Ozpin, it's good to see you. I don't have much time so I need to be brief. I assume you've tried contacting your council over details regarding the three fugitives that are in Vale as we speak. I have a report that you may find interesting."

"Oh? And you came upon this through one of your friends in the Atlas Government?"

"No, better. It came through me from one of my subordinates. I'm sending the report to your scroll, you'll may be able to answer a few questions. Though admittedly, it will only create more questions in the end."

"James, I thank you for this."

"No, consider this as a honest gift between friends. I'll leave you to your business."

The line cutoff, and Ozpin was already reading the report. What he read did indeed, in the end, only create more questions.

 _They didn't have their Aura's activated, yet they managed to survive conflict with the White Fang in the Forever Fall Forest. How peculiar._

He looked at the faces of each of the now revealed "mystery fugitives". High cheekbones, dark skin, large foreheads, and dark hair complimented all of their faces. Three youths, two girls and a young man. Their masks were pictured next to them, and their weapons as well.

The extradition deal that was secretly being worked out surprised him. Unsurprisingly, Atlas was actually trying to withdraw from the deal that one of their operatives had committed to when attempting to hunt down the Trio. Vale wanted a massive amount of Dust in preparation for the Vytle festival, seeing as how it was their turn to host it. They made the excuse that Atlas was obligated to honor their end of the "deal", seeing as how the operative had already entered into Vale. For the moment, a small Atlas Special Operative team was being allowed to operate in Vale, in an attempt to hunt down the fugitives.

Ozpin could only chuckle. Politics tend have a tendency to complicate things more than they should have to be.

He stood and again looked outside, the details he had read tumbling around in his mind as he sipped his coffee.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Staring into the Abyss

16 days after Yucatan Anomaly.

2:37 A.M. - The Industrial District of Vale.

I watched from the rooftop of the warehouse, seeing the gang members continue to carry the drugs to their safehouse. Leading us, for that matter. I looked up and across the empty street to see Wolf, _no Anya,_ watching as well.

"How much longer do you think?" I heard over the radio. "These guys have been going all over the place."

"Not much, they're just trying to make sure they have no one following them."

"Yeah, as if that's working," Anya snorted.

Our job was simple. Follow them to their hideout, and destroy as much of the Dust-enhanced drug, "blood", they had in there. Afterwards, we were to leave a little token. The insignia of some big crime family in the upper-class area of the city. Being a first job for us, our employers were not giving us as big of a check as we would have liked. Only 30,000 Lien. Considering our financial situation, we had decided that if we saw something of opportunity in their hideout, we would grab it.

The safe house was really another transit point in the drug trade that went through out Vale. To discourage anyone from attacking, assuming if said perpetrators actually knew it's purpose, the transport truck that went out into the city would go out with a decoy, another truck, at the same time.

Finally, thinking that they were secure, they walked up to an apartment complex under me that we had passed multiple times. They went up to the door, knocked, and were let in.

"Cecily, did you see the guard at the door?"

"Not necessarily, all I saw was an old lady."

"Anya, get unto the rooftop with me." I ordered. "We're going in through the top. Badger, get to the other side of the street, and wait. We're going to be going in a different way."

I grabbed one of Anya's Cobra Blades, and we rappelled down to the top floor, waiting outside a window covered up with boards. Looking inside, I saw nothing. I grabbed the boards and started pulling them away. Quietly, we gained access into the room.

It was dusty, empty and dark. We were alone. Walking carefully, as to avoid making any noise, old floorboards be damned, we reached the door of the vacant apartment. I opened it carefully, and peered into the hallway. Despite being lighted, there was no one. Only the faint sound of a baby crying could be heard. We slinked through the hallway to some stairs, where we heard some light echoes. Walking down, passing floor after floor, we followed the echoes of what now sounded like crates being pulled across the floor. Pausing at the main floor, I walked along the wall and peered around the corner into the lobby. An old lady was indeed sitting on a rocking chair, asleep. And across from her was another, a sleeping guard, shotgun across his lap.

I motioned for Anya to wake the old lady, and I moved to subdue the guard. I pulled the blade out of his throat, blood coming out of his mouth, while Anya was calming the poor old woman. I walked over to talk to the elderly woman.

"Are you people Hunters?" She said, her sobs finally under control.

"No, law enforcement," lying through my teeth. "Can you tell me about what going on in here?"

"Oh Oum, this gang has been using my building as some sort of base. They've had us hostage for some time now, in case you ever decided to come around and try to shut them down and we're forced to be 'gracious' hosts." Sniffling, she looked ready to start crying again.

"What's your name again?"

"Ms. Gardner."

"Well Ms. Gardner, I need you to do something."

Walking down the stairs, we reached the basement floor, where we noticed a propped up door, the sounds of rap music and men laughing clearly telling us we had come to the right place. We waited outside the door, as I waited for the five minutes to go up.

Seconds before the Ms. Gardner was to turn the lights off, I checked in with Cecily.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Are you sure you don't want to call the police?"

"No. that would only complicate things. I don't want to have to deal with them as well. We'll let Ms. Gardner handle that when we're done."

Three, Two, One. A moment or two passed, and the lights went off, the world becoming pitch dark. The had music stopped and the surprised cries of the men inside the only noticeable sounds. Me and Anya activated our vision, and we went in.

The basement was a loading area, a twenty-five meter by twenty meter room. Two trucks were there, one filled with many boxes in what I could only assume to be the blood . I saw a couple of unarmed faunus, boxes in their hands, still loading up the truck, despite the lack of light. _Natural_ _n_ _ight_ _v_ _ision,_ _of course._ There were 4 large pillars, all in a prefect square to each other. Boxes were randomly stacked all over the room.

The gang members were all human, to their disadvantage, as they were completely blind. But the faunus...

"The fuck was that man! Who the hell turned of the lights? One of you faunus shits, go turn the lights on!"

 _This will work to my advantage._

I looked and saw a faunus, in a sorry state, make his way toward us. He stopped when he saw us, his eyes going wide, a little peep coming out.

I put a finger to my mouth. _Shhhhhh….._

"Well?! Hurry the hell up! We need you animals to finish loading up the blood."

"So- sorry sir, the lights aren't turning on."

"The hell are you talking about, are you sure?"

While the gangster continued his rant, me and Anya started working on the gang members, slitting their throats, quickly killing them. They had no opportunity to use their aura's to shield themselves, and soon the floor became scarlet with the blood of the condemned. As we killed the last goons, the order-ranting idiotic lieutenant stopped.

"Monty, those faunus are worthless. I swear they're as dumb as the animals they are, right Gomez?"

Silence.

"Gomez, you there? You hear what I said? Gomez?" His rifle came up, the barrel going right over my head. He was totally clueless as to what me and Anya had done to his buddies in the last minute and a half, the room being totally pitch dark.

"Gomez, fucking speak up man, don't you dare play any of that snarky shi-"

I rammed him into the wall behind him, my arm across his throat, choking him while the blade poked his belly.

"Regards from the Picardo Family." I hissed into his ear, and stabbed, hard. He squealed, a nasty wound to be sure. But he would live to tell the tale. Dropping him, I kicked him in the teeth, hard and I opened the wrapped-up cloth, and carefully put a Picardo business card in his hand. I turned around and walked to the faunus, who were standing there, aghast as to what we had done. Anya was already opening the boxes, many of which I realized were just full of garbage, but the vials she did find was being made into a pile.

"Are you White Fang?"

The question caught me by surprise. "No. Now before you all leave, I need you to help us find the Dust."

Finishing up, the electricity now turned on, I came up on a unusual package in the back of the truck. It was small, and I realized that it was a suitcase. Opening it, my eyes went wide. Lien. A very nice amount of it. Closing it, I walked out and saw the faunus, again standing their, looking a little lost. A thought came to my mind.

Dumping all of the vials on the floor, and stomping through them, we led the three faunus upstairs to the lobby. I found Ms. Gardner there, the guards shotgun in her hands. Motioning her to drop the weapon, I opened the case, and began counting the Lien in it. All-in-all, about 25,000. I gave out equal portions of 5,000 out to each of them.

"But why?"

"Well, I think it would be best to say that all of you never saw us, that all you heard was fighting...or that you were not even here to begin with."

"Oh. I see. It would be a shame if we just disappeared." The other faunus nodded.

* * *

 _4 hours later..._

As I carried the case full of our payment up the stairs with the girls, all of us yawning, I couldn't help but feel troubled as to what we had done. Yes, we did shut down a drug node, but for the mere purpose of starting a war between two crime syndicate's. Yes, we killed some rather detestable criminals, but how was I supposed to know if they had ever had an opportunity to change their lives? Did I rob them of that opportunity?

Reaching the door, we opened it to see a travel wearing Pearl, a suitcase in each hand.

"Pearl... Is it time?" Anya, quiet.

She nodded, and reached into her pocket, pulling out her apartment keys. She threw them me. "I'll eventually let you guys know where I've settled down. Take care for now." Smiling, she walked out. Just as she passed me she whispered "You're not too damn bad at cooking, you know that?" At the same time, I slipped in the last of the 5,000 into her jacket pocket, a token of our gratitude. She walked down the stairs, and we went inside.

* * *

"How much will Atlas end up paying?" Ozpin asked.

"Nowhere close to the original demand. Only 10% of it."

"5,000,000 units is still a lot."

"And as for the Special Operatives that were in Vale operating for the last few days, they'll be extracted." James paused. "Which is why I need to ask this."

"Hmm?"

"Admittedly, I perturbed as to who these mystery warriors are. I can't blame my operative for wanting to find out who they were. But seeing that is no longer possible, not with the threat of Atlas having to lose much financially, I need to ask you this. Find them, whoever they are. They could be dangerous enemies."

"Or valuable allies." Ozpin said.

James nodded. "Regardless, I'm curious as to see who they are, considering their ages."

"As am I, James. As am I."

* * *

42 Days Later…

The Grimm ran at me, their snarls crying for my blood. I brought the stock against my shoulder.

 _BAAAAM! BAAAAM!_

The shotgun kicked against me, and the targets disintegrated. I quickly reloaded, and blasted the other two behind them. I couldn't help but laugh. The concrete 'Grimm' had completely collapsed.

Gwaed whistled. "Well, I guess that passes the lethality test. How about we try an armor penetration test with those slugs you have." He pressed a button.

Another Grimm popped up, the equivalent of a Death Stalker. I loaded slug, and fired. The metal clanged twice, a direct hit. When we inspected it, the rounds had gone only partway through, which was fine, considering we were talking about the front of a Death Stalker.

As I handled the shotgun, I realized I had forgotten one of the big reason's I had paid a lot of money for this. A pressed the trigger and the weapon quickly and smoothly transformed. The barrel began to lengthen, the pistol grip popping out of the gun.

I still don't even understand how it's possible, but I wasn't going to complain. This weapon was gorgeous.

The rifle looked very similar to it's original ancestor. I turned, and immediately saw the Grimm target. A three-round burst quickly killed it. Next came a more "older," armored Beowulf. I opened fire, putting nine rounds in it with quick succession. Dead. Two Beowolves came up and I quickly killed them, reloading.

Gwaed looked at me. "What do think?" I smiled once more.

Paying for my weapon and thanking him, I walked out onto the street, the folded weapon in my holster.

Reading the manual in my hands, trying to learn about the inner workings of my weapon, my thoughts eventually came to my teams career choice.

Thanks to our first mission, a crime war was now going on. The Picardo family, by far the largest organized crime family of Vale, and as such were the only one's who sold their products to the upper class of Vale. They had always been at odds with the disorganized gangs of the industrial districts. Apparently, the gangs were well known for selling their products at very high prices to the Picardo family, hoping to take advantage of their massive amount of wealth. I had injured a lieutenant of one of the hostile gangs, framing the Picardo's with an act of retribution. The gangs wanted revenge.

We had already completed a few missions for the Picardo family, mostly sabotage, and they very well paying. The girls had already upgraded their weapons, thanks to the money we had been earning quickly. Now we were just trying to live.

I frowned. This war was lucrative, but the fact that we were getting rich off the suffering of others did not sit well with me or my sisters. But what option did we have? This was the first time we had our freedom. The fact that we could pick and choose our missions, and that we could live the civilian life we had tasted so few time was one of the big reason's why we didn't try to join the military. Not that we would, considering our unidentified fugitive status. I sighed. Another option was to go to school, which didn't sound like such a bad idea. But I was only eighteen, Anya seventeen, and Cecily fourteen. Which meant the girls would go to what I assumed to be public schools, not something they would enjoy, considering our dark backgrounds had made us rather anti-social. That and our training and experience. We had payed too much in blood and sweat for it to just waste away.

And besides, after Pearl had left, we had our own apartment. Apparently, school required you to live in dorms with the other kids. Yeah, no, the girls were all the family I had left. We could take of ourselves.

As I walked through the door of our apartment, I got a call on my scroll.

"Hello."

"Marty, it's Ghost." One of my contacts. "I got a guy here who wants to talk to you."

"Details?"

"Theft, that's all he said."

I frowned, and thought about it. "Does he have any connections to the Picardo-Gang wa-"

"No."

"Where does he want to meet?"

* * *

59 days after the Yucatan Anomaly

11:00 p.m – The Commercial District of Vale

Standing in the shadows, I saw the man walk into the moon light that seeped through one of the windows of the empty warehouse. I motioned Anya forward.

"This is Cecily, I got our employee in sight. I don't see anything on him that might off, other than that cane."

I studied him. Completely black suit, the wide brim hat hiding his face well. No discernible feature's other than that he was a small guy, and had a noticeable slouch.

Anya spoke first. "State the nature of your call."

"I'm in need of some highly skilled individuals that are capable of two thefts, both of which will be happening at the same time." The man's voice sounded old, and tired.

"And you come to us for this reason?" The man nodded.

I frowned. Two jobs happening at the same time. That meant we would have to split up.

Anya continued, "What are the details of the jobs?"

"The first theft is one consists of stealing the head of an android bodyguard that belongs to an heiress."

What? The head of an android?

"The data inside this particular bot is of importance to me. I had it hidden many years ago, and I have need of it during this time."

"The second job consists of stealing certain Dust crystals. They are incredibly valuable and are very well guarded. As such, I have provided these details of a train that will be transporting these crystals."

"Who do these objects belong to?" Anya inquired.

My breathing stopped. _Who in the livin_ _g_ _-_

"The android itself belongs to the Schnee Dust Company, and serves the heiress, Weiss Schnee."

"The Dust crystals also belong to the Schnee Dust Company."

Suddenly he started coughing, hard, and didn't let up for a minute or so.

During his coughing spell, I thought about what we were being asked to do. I knew who the Schnee Dust Company was, thank you very much. After I seen the name "Schnee" on a bag of dust in a store, I had looked it up, dumbstruck as to the connection with a certain Ice Queen I had met. I walked from the shadows towards them.

When he was done, he looked up, and jumped, seeing me appear out of nowhere.

"We will take it, however I do not understand as to why this had to be done at the sane time."

He raised a hand, leaflets of paper in his hand. "These will explain why."

"And how much are you willing to pay?"

"3,000,000 Lien."

Thankful for the mask I wore, lest he should have seen my gaping mouth, I nodded my confirmation.

* * *

70 days after the Yucatan Anomaly

11:29 AM – The Forever Fall Forest

Anya and Cecily looked down at the rushing train, the Bullhead slowing down to match the train's speed. They saw the target car that contained the Dust, but passed it, and stopped a few cars behind.

"Green light, go go go!" The crew chief yelled into the radio.

Anya and Cecily rappelled quickly down the ropes onto the railroad car, the Bullhead dropping the ropes, and they started running towards the top hatch. They opened the hatch and landed inside.

Standing up, they heard over the radio, "Give the call, and we'll come and pick you guys up."

"Roger Psycho. Starting the clock."

 _Nice of our employee to give us some air transport._ Wolf thought as they looked around. An empty freight car, its cargo presumably having been dropped off at a prior destination. They would have to be quick, as there was a small window of opportunity. The air cover for this train was being rotated, leaving the train vulnerable for the next ten minutes or so.

They walked to the door and opened it, jumping over the coupling to gain access to the other door. They opened it, looking to see another empty, dark car and walked inside, slowly closing the do-

"Intruder, Identify yourself." a robotic voice cried out, lights turning on.

Anya and Cecily froze, then looked behind them. They saw multiple android guards surrounding a pair of armed individuals., one woman and one man.

 _How the hell, where the, what?_ Thought a bewildered Anya.

Suddenly, the man dashed forward, slicing the head off an android before turning and cleaving it in half, bisecting it through the chest.

Anya saw a couple of androids look at each before all of them transformed their arms into blades, then attack the individuals.

Anya felt her shoulder being tugged on, and she was slowly pulled outside the car, all while watching the androids mercilessly be destroyed by the sword-wielding assailants.

Closing the door, the girls suddenly heard gunfire, and the wall they were leaning against rattled. Nothing else. Then a loud crash.

They waited a few more moments, then looked inside again. The wall directly across from them had collapsed, and past that, the assailants were advancing along the next car, destroying more androids. Quietly, they followed the assailants, the path of wrecked androids guiding them over the flat car, and into the into the next car. As they approached the door, it automatically opened, revealing the two black clad assailants inside, talking to each other.

Anya and Cecily froze. _Why did the door have to be automatic..._

"What was that?" the man called out, and of them turned around.

"Adam, I asked what you were-" She saw them.

The girls blinked. Suddenly, Adam was charging them, the Girl behind him.

Anya cursed, and drew her blade, blocking an attack from Adam. The two immediately began dueling, the speed of the fight making their motions seem like a complete blur, an occasional gunshot being heard.

Cecily brought up her ax, and suddenly found herself at odds with the Girl. She slashed out, and hit her, before dissolving into shadow.

 _What?_

Suddenly, Cecily, was hit from behind, and she fell to the floor. She used the momentum to bring her hands forward and spring upright, turning around. Again she saw the Girl, this time dashing at her, her sheath and blade ready.

"Cecily, the sheath cuts too!" she heard Anya scream, the rapid clanging telling of the continuing duel.

Just as the Girl entered range, Cecily crouched, and activated her weapon, the axe's handle suddenly lengthening, the weapon now a halberd. The axe head rushed forward, and the Girl immediately jumped, dodging the axe head, but cutting her momentum, and now landing between the axe head and Cecily. Cecily retracted the handle and the halberd quickly shortened, and became an axe once more, the girl now having to flip backwards in order to dodge the head that had been coming for her back. She stopped, and looked up to see Cecily hit her wrist, and see a buckler deploy, all while advancing on her.

Anya was having the fight of her life. The two of them were at a complete standstill, unable to swing the balance of the fight to their side. What one did the other managed to counter perfectly. It was exhilarating, but then she heard a beep.

 _5 minutes left._

Cecily heard this as well, and she realized that time was running out.

 _This fight is only delaying us. These assailants aren't the objectives._ Cecily blocked a hit with her shield, jumping to avoid a slash to her knees from the Girl, before she kicked out. Then, she concentrated, focusing on her opponent in front of her.

The stasis bubble formed over the Girl, who had just started to jump. She hit her head against the dome and fell, before picking herself up, and started attacking the dome from the inside, attempting to escape her temporary prison.

Cecily chuckled. _Good luck with that._

Turning around, she rushed for the compartment, and jumped over the still-dueling pair, rushing into the car and looking around. There, the container. As she opened it and grabbed the package with the target label, she heard another beep.

 _3 minutes._

 **CLANG!**

She turned around, and her jaw fell. Right there was a giant, spider-like warmech, blocking her path back to Anya. She turned and ran, zigzagging, dodging cannon fire as she reached the door. _If the battle cannot be won, do not fight it._

Outside, she yelled into the radio.

"Psycho, we need evac, NOW!"

"Already there, you guys had better be ready, we got bandits on radar, ETA, 1 minute."

Cecily cursed when she heard clanging behind her. She turned and started running, jumped, landing on top of the car as the warmech punched it's way through the wall below her, looking for her.

As she rushed over the top to help Anya, she suddenly saw her jump onto the top of the cart as well, with Adam and the Girl in hot pursuit. Looking behind her, she saw the mech climbing up. She looked to her right. There was the Bullhead.

Suddenly, she felt herself get tackled off the train. She started to yell, the red forest below rushing to meet her before someone grabbed her arm. A distinct noise suddenly became apparent, and she felt herself begin to ascend. She looked up, and saw Anya wheeling them in to the Bullhead with the grappling hook on the left side of her arm, curtsy of one of the grappling devices she had ripped out of her now defunct Cobra Blades.

"Anya, I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU WHEN WE GET HOME!" Cecily screamed in rage.

Anya just rolled her eyes, and the sound of cannons quickly faded away.

* * *

70 days after the Yucatan Anomaly

11:30 AM – The Upper-Class District of Vale.

I peeked over the edge of the three-story building, looking down at the entourage that was escorting Ms. Schnee. I saw the heiress, being escorted by six combat androids, and another, more feminine android that didn't looked armed. The target. She was led into the restaurant below me.

Weiss Schnee was apparently accompanying her father on a two-day trip to Vale to check on some certain assets of the company. Today was the only day that Ms. Schnee would have any time off for herself, lunch in this case. The only time in which she would be in a more vulnerable state, or rather the target, her maid android.

I grumbled, disliking the feel of the ski mask I was wearing, but I didn't want to bring out my skeletal mask, not in broad daylight. That one was reserved for the underworld. I moved to the vent covering and opened it.

Crawling through the vents carefully, I found myself looking down at the main room of the restaurant, a ballroom in size. I looked, the side of my head against the vent floor, straining to find the Heiress.

 _She must have been brought to a VIP suite of some sor- there. Wow, does this restaurant like to be an ass in the fact that they have a powerful guest by putting them up there?_

The VIP suite was located on the second floor, a small balcony for all to see who was dining there. I saw the Heiress sit down, and the maid android stand motionless behind her, the waiter politely discussing whatever the special was.

I started crawling through the vents towards her, backtracking a little, before I finally saw what I wanted.

I saw how the suite worked. The balcony that Ms. Schnee occupied was separated by a curtain that lead to a waiting room, which was guarded by the androids, as I saw. Moving over, I saw that the waiting room lead to another room, which contained the private kitchen, with two chefs busy working on the Heiress's meal, the waiter waiting. The said kitchen lead to a hallway outside.

 _Okay, what to do…_

I opened my scroll, and opened a schematic app, gaining access to all the electronic systems within the restaurant, curtsy of our employer.

" _Sir, please be aware, that Ms. Schnee will not take the attack on her maid bot lightly. If she should spot you, she very well will retaliate, and she is a very capable young woman."_

Right, well, that's why you gave access to this lovely computer virus, isn't it?

I looked through the building plans until I found what I was looking for. Lighting for the kitchen. I stood over the vent, readying myself. I turned the lights off.

"Holy crap!"

"Jeez, what the-"

"Hey, Mark, turn the lights back on!"

"I didn't turn them off, why do you think it was me, I was standing over here." The waiter yelled back.

"Just turn them on, I didn't say you did it!" one of the chef's retorted.

While they kept bickering, I jumped in silently, and pulled out my weapon, putting it into shotgun.

"Who's there?" The Chef said.

"Yell, and I blow your brains out." I said quietly. They all froze. "Get over here, no funny moves."

I had them kneel in front of me, and I pulled out the bottle in my hands, quickly spraying them all in the face. They collapsed, going into a deep slumber. _Sweet dreams._

I went over to the door that lead to the hallway and locked it, before I went over to the stoves and turned them off, not wanting the food to burn and set off the fire alarm. I then went over to the other door, and ever so slowly opened the door, pulling it ajar just slightly. I quickly pulled myself up into the vents, and crawled forward over to the waiting room, where I saw the guards, who had noticed the barely opened door, and were all just edging over to the door, positioning themselves outside it. I again dropped the vent, and landed behind them. They didn't hear a single thing. I pulled out my weapon, and switched it to the rifle, and I breathed, focusing.

Time seemed to slow. I put a quick placed six headshots, all placed within two point four seconds. I let go, suddenly feeling drained, as if I had just finished a marathon.

I turned, and waited for a moment, just to see if the heiress had heard anything. Nope. I walked over to the curtains, and carefully peeked.

I saw the heiress, who was still in the same sitting position, though I noticed that her fingers were tapping away in impatience. I backed up and grabbed my blade, and pulled up my scroll, and this time, shutdown the electricity to the entire restaurant.

The collective gasps and few shrieks hopefully got the heiress's attention. I reached forward through the curtains and grabbed the droid, pulling it though into the dark waiting room.

"Excuse me?!" I heard a voice cry out.

I quickly sliced the head off the maid, before I hit the wall next to the curtain, pressing myself against it.

Ms. Schnee burst though it, and stopped. Suddenly, a glyph appeared on the floor, it's white light illuminating the dark room, allowing her to see her destroyed guards and maid bot. She whipped out her blade, moving forward to examine the destroyed bots.

"Who..."

I stepped over to the side, and went through the curtain, reaching for the rail. As I began jumping over it, the lights suddenly turned on. Allowing everyone in the room to see me fall.

The shrieks of people must have attracted the attention of the heiress, because as I was running to the door, I heard a crash behind me. I dropped some smoke mini's, and started zigzagging, putting the droid head in my bag.

Regardless, someone crashed into me, and we ended up rolling to a stop, with the heiress on top.

 _Oh dear… I wouldn't mind this, if she wasn't trying to kill me._

She too seemed a bit shocked as to the position we were in, and I immediately lashed out, shoving her off me as I picked myself up and booked it outside.

Running down the street, I heard the faint "Make way!" I turned the corner again, this time running down an alley way. I looked up, and saw a fire escape. I began climbing, and looked down, seeing the heiress right there. She began running over here and I climbed faster.

I reached the top of the building and pulled myself up to the rooftop and found Ms. Schnee right there, her rapier at the ready.

 _How did she manage to get up here so quickly?_

"I don't know who you are, but you've destroyed and stolen Schnee Dust Company property. I don't know what you want with that head, but if you decide to keep running, I will take you down and surrender you to the police."

I said nothing, and shrugged, as if to say _okay, cool._ I began circling her, and she did too. A foolish mistake.

 _Lets see how her parkour skills are._

As we completed a semi-circle, I dropped another smoke, and turned and booked it, jumping onto the next rooftop. I rolled on my landing and continued running, hearing a strange noise, I looked back and saw that the heiress had landed too.

 _Hmmm, interesting. Can she do glyphs like her older sister?_

We continued like that for a few more rooftops, me jumping, and her doing whatever it was to help her travel.

It was at one particular roof top. I guess the edge of it wasn't in particularly good shape, because as I leaped off, the tile fell away, and I barely managed to land on the other side. I heard the strange noise, and then a yelp. I turned around, hearing a crash down in the alley. The heiress had fallen. I went over to the edge and peered down, and saw her. It looked like she had been caught off guard by the edge too and had landed on top of the garbage cans down there.

 _I think she has her aur- yeah she does, she looks pretty bruised up though._

She picked herself up, staggering a bit.

"Hey beautiful, whats a cute girl doing down here?"

I looked down the alley way further, identifying the source of the voice, and I groaned. Ostivo Picardo, the firstborn son of the Picardo family, and a bunch of his thugs. I suddenly got a chill down my spine.

Let's just say that if I knew that he was so much as talking to my sisters, I would straight up kill him in cold blood. He had a reputation based off what I had heard from the way he treated his younger sisters…

As the group of thugs began walking there way over to the Schnee girl, who was still pretty beat up and had no where to go, I began to get a headache.

 _Okay, so why should I care? I have what I need and I can go. She can handle herself…_

 _B_ _ullshit, you care. Since when the hell have you never helped someone who was in pain._

I took my mask off, and leapt over the side, landing behind the heiress, who had her blade up and was ready to fight. Ostivo stopped.

"Who the hell are you..." He trailed off, and his eyes went wide. He stopped. He recognized me.

"You know who I am, Ostivo. She's with me." I walked up to the Ms. Schnee, and hooked her arm, bring her close to my side.

"What? How? She was just by herse-"

"That's not what matters. What you need to know is that you're interfering in my work and your father would not be happy to know that his son had soured relations between our businesses."

He stopped at that. He tried sneering, but failed. He knew what I was capable of doing.

"Fine, just, don't say anything to my father..."

"And I won't either Ostivo, I won't either."

He turned and walked away. When his group turned the corner, I let go of the heiress. She turned to me, and suddenly I found the tip of her rapier on my throat.

"Why?"

"Hmm?"

"I asked why."

"Why did I help you?"

"We can start with that."

"I know him, and for the record, he would have been able to take you down, he's not an incapable fighter."

"That still doesn't explain-"

"Fine. I have two younger sisters, and I would die if something like… that were to happen to them."

She paused, her light-blue eyes looking into mine. Then she pushed the rapier harder into my throat.

"And the androids? Why did you steal the head of my maid bot?"

I stopped. And shrugged. " A job, nothing more."

"Someone paid you to steal the head of one of my androids?"

I blinked.

She blinked, and then she let down the blade.

"I'm still going to report this."

"That's fine. I don't think the police will be able to do anything."

She glared, and began walking away. I followed her, and began escorting her.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Escorting you."

"Oh, so in the hopes that you can be forgiven?" she sneered.

"While that would be nice, I was thinking more along the lines in making sure that Ostivo didn't try and go at you a second time."

She glared, but kept walking on, saying nothing as I escorted her wherever it was.

Eventually, we found ourselves in front of a very bourgeois hotel, and I stopped, mockfully bowing. "It was a pleasure, Ms. Schnee."

"YOU!" I looked to my right.

 _Shit._

Winter Schnee stood there, her saber in her hand, looking very ready to kill me.

I have never run so fast in my life, (I know what an older sibling is willing to do) but all I can say is that I was smiling the whole time.

 _She was shorter than me… YES._


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Dance it up

* * *

" _But you're just kids..."_

 _Slowly shaking my head, I raised the silenced pistol, aiming._

" _After what you've done, after what we've done, how could we be called little children?"_

 _I pulled the trigger._

* * *

73 Days after Yucatan anomaly

5:32 AM – The Commercial District of Vale

My eyes opened, and after blinking a bit, I took a deep breath.

Laying there on the couch, I thought about what had brought what was left of my blood down such a dark path. The attack had been so long ago, the pain of that now all but a distant memory, a scar. But I still felt goosebumps when I thought about the consequences that had followed.

My scroll rang, interrupting my thoughts. The caller I.D. was unknown.

"Yeah?"

"Marty, it's me."

"Did you find him?" Our employer had not come by as planned to pick up his items of interest last night, and for that matter, we had had a run-in with the police as we were leaving the pick-up point.

"Yeah, he's wondering if you guys could meet him at the same warehouse in about four hours."

"We'll be there. Tell him he better be there as well, considering what happened last night. "

I closed the scroll and let it fall to the floor, focusing my mind on the drum of my heartbeat, and nothing else.

* * *

 _4 hours later…_

Despite it being morning, with the sun up, it was still dark inside the building. The suitcase containing the Dust crystals was in my left hand, the android head in the pack behind me. I hid in the shadows with Anya, with Cecily somewhere above us, watching.

"We have incoming."

I peered and did see someone. When he stepped into the sunlight, the crouched form looked familiar.

Anya grabbed the bag and we went forward to meet him.

"Cecily, is there anyone else in the building, or around us?"

A pause, "No."

When the stranger saw us, he raised a hand, as if to stop us. But Anya had a hand on her sword, ready to draw it.

"Leaving us hanging last night was not a wise decision on your part, where the hell were you?" She hissed.

"Hold, I am not here to collect. Rather, I'm here to see if you actually have the requested items."

Tilting my head in curiosity, I opened the case and displayed the crystals, while Anya re-sheathed her blade and grabbed the head from the bag, showing it.

"I am only an extension of your actual employer, an assistant, if you will." He turned towards me, pointing.

"You, and you alone, will need to deliver these things to my boss. Tonight, at The Club."

"The Club?"

"Junior's. Look it up, it shouldn't be difficult to find, his club is one of the better ones in town, by far. Find Junior, and ask him for the contact in the VIP lounge, he'll lead you to my boss. Oh, and as I said beforehand, you and you alone are to go. None of your teammates are to come with you."

"I can't see how that's a good idea." I flatly replied. "You running out on us has me unsettled as to what you could have planned."

He sighed, his body language telling me how frustrated he was getting. _You'_ _re_ _rather_ _inexperienced a_ _t_ _this_ _,_ noting the way he was getting restless.

"Be there to collect your payment, otherwise, you'll have to consider finding another buyer."

He turned and walked away, leaving us no opportunity to get the last word in.

* * *

73 Days after the Yucatan Anomaly

11:30 PM – The Commercial District of Vale

I put the suitcase and head in the bag, and put the straps over my shoulder, before climbing out of the car. Immediately the first thing I noticed was the music; I could feel it just as much as I could hear it. Outside.

 _Jesus, do people just not give a damn about what happens to their ears?_

I put my long black coat and raised the hood over my face before I put my mask on, then entered, walking down the dark hallway to the origin of all that noise.

The double door opened up for me, and for a second I had to stop and just absorb the sheer amount of stimuli that was bombarding my ADD head. The music was making my ears ring, and the flashing strobe lights were giving me a headache. Not fun.

Then I noticed all the pretty girls that were down there dancing. _Okay, maybe I could make an exception._

I started walking down the stairs, and was immediately greeted by two thugs, swords in their hands as they stopped me.

"Where do you think you're goin' with all of that?" Ugly 1 said.

I paused, noting their suspicion. _T_ _heir boss doesn't want his men to know_ _about this deal_ _. Whatever happens here tonight is going to be all hushed up. Unless someone gets killed, of course._

"That information is for your boss, who I assume is Junior. For that matter, I need to speak with him."

They frowned, looked me over, then waved with their swords in the direction of Junior, escorting me around the dance floor.

"Junior" was a big guy, standing a good foot-and-a-half over me. Dressed sharply, he looked ready to do business.

"The contact in the VIP lounge?" He mirrored my question. "I assume you're 'Jaguar'?"

I nodded, noting the two girls off to the side, watching us talk. The looks they gave me were one of warning; _check yourself before you wreck yourself._

"Hmmm, yeah, you look like him. You got any weapons on you?"

I tilted my head again, my mouth open, trying very hard to not laugh behind my mask. _Really..._

"Whatever. Girls, bring 'Jaguar' here to the VIP lounge." He motioned, and began walking away.

The girls, I realized, were twins, if their green eyes and equal heights said anything. They both wore strapless dresses, one red and another cyan. The looks they gave me, other than suspicious, were one of hidden interest. _They're probably just trying to guess if I'm a guy or a chick… Oh lord, well, on the positive side, that's just another card I can keep close to my chest._

We walked up to the second floor of the club, and I saw what had to be the door for the lounge. The twins stoped outside the door as I walked in. Immediately, I noticed a black femine form lying along the couch in rather seductive manner, her black clothing rather tight around her body. She rose when she saw me, and beckoned me forward.

Her face was hidden in a deep hood, so I had no way of identifying her. However, I did note the rather petite form of her body. As well as the _naginata_ polearm she was holding in her right arm.

But what really caught my attention was the suitcase on her left hand.

"Jaguar, I assume?" she said, faint.

I strained to be able to hear her, but nodded. Immediately, I opened the case, showing the Dust crystals, and the head. She threw the suitcase towards me, and I started counting, the number of platinum colored Lien cards quickly racking up to the lovely three million Lien. I looked up and gave her the items she had bought.

The second her hands were on them, she swept past me, the doors opening and closely quickly behind me. I quickly followed suite.

Walking out onto the balcony, my curiosity piqued, I scanned the club for the mysterious buyer, but saw no hint of the distinct polearm. I looked towards the bar, seeing Junior standing in the middle of a circle of thugs, laughing with them as they hung out and drank.

"So… it's Jaguar?" a snobbish voice behind me said.

I nodded, but didn't turn, my attention now focused on the club around me, absorbing the details and structure of the interior.

"Hmm, but what's you're real name?" I turned, facing the cyan girl who just spoke.

"There's a reason why I don't tell most people my actual name."

"Oh, a shame. Though, to be honest, I'm actually a bit more curious as to what's behind that mask."

"Ah, well, that in itself is more the reason to wear this mask, especially if we consider who you're employed for."

I saw the red girl eye's narrowed, and I turned to her, noting the claws she had.

"Besides, I don't know why else you would be so interested." I stressed the 'why else'

"Well, you do have a bit of reputation around you." Red quietly said. "We're curious as to who you are."

"Yeah? Well, what are you guys thinking?"

Red smiled, and looked at Cyan, who smiled back.

"A competition."

* * *

As a little kid, about when I was 12, I had wrestled for a season. I knew a one-on-one when I saw it. The room felt like the practice room, the lack of windows, the high ceiling, the mats along the wall.

I saw the boundaries, the black circle in the middle of this room.

"Junior uses this room occasionally, though he isn't much of a fighter. Rather let us do the dirty work. But really, he rents it out to the gangs, let them fight it out amongst themselves in a duel."

"Honor amongst thieves..." I murmured.

I walked to the middle of the floor, and turned around again facing the girls.

"I never did get your names."

"Hah, says you." Cyan folded her arms. "I think we'll go with whatever it is you've been calling us."

I shrugged. "So, whats at stake here?"

"You." Red replied.

"Ah... And what's in it for me?"

"The next competition."

I went over that, feeling more and more unsure. Truth be told, I'd never really interacted with girls my age, so I was a bit stumped and floundered as to what that could mean. But I felt like I knew maybe what they were referencing…

I shrugged. "How is this going to work?"

"Your aura drops to below 15, you're done."

"And I assume you both are going to pair up for the fight?"

Red eyes narrowed. "What makes you say that?"

"The fact that you have claws, and that your twin sister has those bladed heels. I would think that would be an obvious observation."

Cyan stared at me for a few seconds, before she took out her scroll, messing with it before I saw a screen pop up on the wall next to me, her face on it with a green bar below it, a hundred next to the picture. Red followed suit and I soon saw her face appear with the same green bar and number.

"Hook yours up." Cyan ordered.

I bowed, and took my scroll out, all while thinking as to what the heck was I supposed to do.

Opening it, I saw a big red button, _**CONNECT?**_ flashing below it.

 _Huh, that's convenient._

I clicked, and soon my face and Aura were displayed, opposite of the twins.

I turned, and saw the girls walk up, synchronized and ready to kick some ass.

Again I bowed, keeping my eyes on them. "When you are ready ladies."

They both glared and then began their attack, moving away from each other as they advanced.

* * *

Red was coming at me from the left, Cyan from the right. Turning towards Red, I dashed forward and kicked at her, hitting her claws as she blocked. I sprang up, dodging Cyan's roundhouse kick from behind me. I flipped, and landed behind her, as she was ducking to allow Red to jump over and start swiping, her claws lashing out as I kept dodging, backing up.

Red suddenly dashed to my right, allowing Cyan to commit to a flying kick. I ducked and rolled, before running forward and, grabbing one of Red's wrists, slugged her in the stomach, before flipping her over my shoulder.

I let go as Cyan again came at me, her bladed heels crying out for my face. I grabbed the tip of her shoe, and the back of her calf, fling her around me, before I was slashed along my legs. Moving back, noting that Cyan had only landed graciously, and that Red was now getting up.

I charged at Red, and took out my folding blade, keeping it closed, the handle hidden in my palm. Red again lashed out, and I opened my blade, blocking one of her claws as I again reached and grabbed her wrist.

I went under her arm I had grabbed, pinning her arm behind her back as I put Red between me and Cyan, who had again committed to a flying kick. I got a glimpse of her widening eyes as she landed the blow on Red's chest, causing her to kneel.

Striking the back of Red's head with the pommel of my blade, knocking her down, a alarm went off, telling of a knockout.

I leapt back, seeing Cyan leap and land in front of me, before committing to a series of rapid kicks, of which I was mostly dodged or redirected. Suddenly, she spun and her momentum-driven blow went over my head as I ducked and tackled her.

She lost her balance, and landed outside the circle. The alarm went right off.

Standing up, I looked over, noting the small deduction of aura I had taken. As for my opponent, well, they wouldn't be fighting any time soon.

"So, what the next competition?" I asked, helping Cyan get up.

Cyan got up slowly, raising an eyebrow at me.

" How good of a dancer are you?"

* * *

I opened the door to the apartment, the exhaustion I felt making me smile. That had been fun as all hell, and the girls had absolutely kicked my ass in the dance competition.

So I allowed them a glimpse at my face, as well as my actual name.

And we exchanged phone numbers.

My stomach still got butterfly's as I thought about that. I had never gotten a girls number before.

"Where have you been?" Cecily demanded, "We were worried sick, it's 4 in the morning..."

As my sister continued her rant, my attention went back to the night I had spent in the club, a small smile on my face as I thought about the twins.


	10. Chapter 9 Prologue

Chapter 9 Prologue – Surprise! It's me!

89 Days after Yucatan Anomaly

8:37 PM – The Industrial District of Vale

The goon began spiriting down the hallway, and I led my sights in front of him, pulling the trigger to my rifle, the notable chunk of the bolt hitting the round making the significant noise from my weapon.

I saw his Aura flare as a few of my rounds hit him, making him stumble, before he fell down. As he tried to get up, I quickly shot him again, and again he fell down. Permanently, this time.

I quickly looked down the hall, seeing no one else.

"Cecily, you see anyone?"

"No," she replied, "I thin- hold up..."

CRACK!

A body fell over a few meters ahead, falling away from the intersection, and curling up into fetal position.

"Okay, now I don't anyone else."

I moved down the corridor, switching my weapon to its shotgun form, and positioned myself outside the door to room 137, on my right.

Just as I was about to open the door, I found myself outside, face down on the ground and my ears ringing. My chest felt like I had been run over my a tank, and I was seeing black spots floating.

As I moved my head a little, I noticed that the shadows around me were flickering, and I realized what had happened.

 _A bomb? God, If I hadn't had my Aura, I would have never known what had killed me…_

Struggling to pick my self up, I manged to get to my hands and knees, all before I suddenly was hit from behind, someone stepping down on my back, once again forcing the air out of my lungs as I hit the ground.

"Well, lookie here, the man himself. I do believe that we haven't had the chance to meet."

I was roughly rolled over, and managed to get a look at my assailant, and noted the cane he was resting on, his green eyes roaming over me. I noted the cigar in his mouth.

Of course _**he**_ had to be here.


	11. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The Ambush

Looking down at the hotel, I sniffed in disdain. I could practically smell the corruption around here. Both the corporate greed and actual shit from the alleys around the building, which was impressive, considering that I was four stories up.

"So, tell me again why we're here?" I snarked into my intercom, noting the guards here and there.

" You asked for an opportunity to lay some pain on the crime families here, well, here you go. Le Hotel Pignifique. A temporary home for the CEO's who come by to inspect their factories, all while earning a little extra with deals behind closed doors. Maybe even a visit with a mistress or tw-"

"Fine, I get it Cecily. But why here, though? A lot of those closed deals often happen between themselves. They don't like involving themselves with the families. Too dirty of a group for them."

"True, expect for one CEO in particular. Remember how the Martinez Family got their hands on those light machine guns and RPGs last month?"

I grimaced, remembering what had happened. A drive by, expect one on steroids. Armed with military grade weapons, instead of your stereotypical submachine guns and pistols, a Martinez hit squad had hit the valuable night club of another family. Or rather, outright destroyed the building. A lot people had die, a few of them petty criminals. As for the rest…

Innocent blood like that could not go unwashed.

"So you found the source of the weapons?" I asked, now realizing what Cecily had provided for us.

"Maybe. I'm not sure. The guy we're looking for is Mikael Vlad, head of Global Integrated Dust Company. Turns out this guy is absolutely loathed by some people, and he and his company get targeted a lot by activist groups. Often violently. It's bad enough that he hires Private Military Contractors for security, and outfits them with some serious equipment. He has his own private army."

"And this guy might be selling his weapons to he Martinez family?"

"I don't think so. Rather, Vlad's source for his army may be the seller. It could very well be that Vlad is acting as a third party in this case. He could be be getting a cut of some profits being made by simply acting as the contact for the Martinez Family."

"So let me guess, I'm going to be going in there, and having a talk with this Vlad guy."

"Just get the name of his contact! If there is one and get out. Nice and simple."

"Hmmm. I have the feeling that wasn't going to be the case..."

* * *

"So, do you think what I'm asking for is going to be difficult?" Roman retorted, his cane pressing down on the throat of his client.

Yes. That was all he needed to hear.

Roman smiled, one of his favorite words reaching his ears. "Get him up," he ordered, watching as his lovely partner strong armed Vlad. Yes, this was much easier than trying to play by the rules. Why bother working honestly when you would only end up being cheated by someone else. If you wanted to win, you had to play by your own rules.

Which, for Roman, equated to _all is fair in love and war._

And oh how he loved the money. The power. And the adrenaline.

And as for a fight…

If the information a mutual friend of his and a certain vagabond was correct, he would be here any second now.

He motioned for Neo to silence Vlad, and then raised his cane, aiming at the door of the hotel room.

Annnnnnd… Now

* * *

Cecily really was never one for formalities.

Why bother wasting your time with the superficial crap when you could be direct? Just get it done and over with, no need to waste time.

Looking through the scope of her rifle, seeing her brother pined underneath the foot of some douchebag, she began to realize that maybe introductions weren't a bad idea. Surprises really weren't her thing.

But then again, two could play that game, she thought as she settled the crosshairs on Mister-Im-a-Class-A-Swagful-Douchebag.

"FREEZE MOTHER FUCKER!"

Instantly jumping over the side of the building, all Cecily wanted to do was take back what she had just said.

Fuck.

* * *

Feeling the hair on the back of her neck raise, Anya turned around, her blade ready to take down whoever was following her.

Nothing.

No, there was someone here. It was too empty on the street. Damnit, It was too quiet.

Goddamnit, she really should have been paying atten-

A flicker of motion on the edge of her sight was all the warning she had, spinning to parry the sword that was now coming for her throat, before moving into counter attack. However, Anya found herself being pushed on the defense, as a second, and then a third, weapon entered the melee.

Feeling a wall pushed up against her back, Anya realized that the night was now all too bright. Looking past her three opponents, her eyes widened at the sight of multiple SWAT cars now suddenly there, spotlights aimed at her, and their respective teams now all aiming their weapons at her. With a beautiful Schnee woman standing at attention with a cold look directed at her.

Anya could only sigh. She didn't need them to tell her what they wanted, and they knew that.

Fuck.

* * *

I coughed, noting a coppery taste in my mouth. Oh, how I wanted to wipe that smug look off of Roman's face. I had had the fortune of meeting the bastard at a rave I was at to meet some contacts. And a couple of friends of mine.

"You know, it's rather rude to involve yourself in other people's business. Didn't your parents teach you that?" Roman said as he raised his cane, readying it in a manner that said he was going to play a bit of golf with my head.

Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he kicked off of me, all the air once again rushing out of the launchpad of my chest as I almost went unconscious. As I once again moved into fetal position, I noticed a black bird quickly zoom over and past me, in pursuit of Roman.

A crow, of all things.

Of course, my attention was quickly drawn away as I felt footsteps. I looked over, and groaned. That was a lot of cops headed my way.

I struggled to get up, quickly retrieving my blade from my belt, and was about to swing at the first cop that was about to reach me when a loud voice stopped the fight before it could begin, the sharp and commanding tone freezing us all.

"STOP!" The silhouette standing in the lights of the SWAT cars made it clear that this was a woman. But I couldn't make it out. And I was really tired.

Tired. While the cops were here. Strange…

This was no time to be getting caught…

Fuck...


End file.
